That's why I wonder if making the drive appear to be a new one will remedy the problem. As you stated before, it is PC-specific suggesting the corrupt information may be on the PC rather than the drive (though the fact it misbehaves on 2 out of 3 PCs may suggest otherwise). A way to make the drive seem like a new one is to uninstall it (it has to be plugged in so you can see it in Device Manager). The next time you plug it in, Windows should think it is a new device. It can't make the problem any worse. (I've done this with troublesome USB wireless adapters.)

A surefire - but desperate - solution would be to copy all the files to another external drive, reformat the problematic one and copy the files back. (Unless Windows uses the serial number of the drive to record information that's causing the problem).

John.

John, the computer exhibits the exact same behavior regardless of where the dv-avi file is stored - on the local C drive or on an external drive.

Other avi files (uncompressed, HUFF YUV) are fine.

Oh.

You could try unregistering and reregistering the Microsoft DV codec.

C:\WINDOWS\system32\regsvr32 -u qdv.dll
C:\WINDOWS\system32\regsvr32 qdv.dll

Perhaps something is corrupt in the registry. The above will remove and recreate the correct entries.

John.

How do I do that? I'm not exactly an IT person, just the average computer user.

Start Menu/Run...
Type cmd and press Enter

You should see a window with a white flashing cursor.
Type:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\regsvr32 -u qdv.dll

and press Enter. You should get a message saying qdv.dll was unregistered successfully - close the message window.

Type:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\regsvr32 qdv.dll

and press Enter. You should get a message saying qdv.dll was registered successfully - close the message window.

Type:

exit

and press Enter. The command prompt window will close.

John.