Can't modify scratch disk locations. Premiere and explorer.exe hang.

[ScottS]

Summary:
I installed Adobe Premiere Pro 1.0 and then the Matrox hardware and
software, and the first thing I tried in Premiere Pro after creating
the first project was to modify the scratch disk paths. It failed
repeatedly. The other beginner's tasks work fine as long as I leave
the scratch disk paths alone, but if I try to modify even one path to
a folder on hard drive 2 or 3, Premiere Pro hangs. If I even open the
dialog box and press the Cancel button, Premiere Pro hangs. Windows
Task Manager shows Premiere, explorer.exe, and csrss.exe using 100% of
the CPU and not responding.

This doesn't sound like what I've read here about problems with sound
cards and other hardware drivers that crash the operating system
before Premiere Pro even opens its window. My Premiere Pro runs until
I try to set the scratch disk paths, then hangs until I end its task
in Windows Task Manager.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Premiere Pro menu: edit, preferences, scratch disks.
2. Set captured video path to hard drive 1 (E:/videoCapture).
Hard drive 0 runs OS and program files.
Hard drive 2 is a dedicated AV drive.
3. Press either the Okay or Cancel button (without even trying to
make changes).

What went wrong?:
System hangs. Premiere Pro, Windows Explorer and "Client-server Run-
time Process"
working hard, apparently trying to do something, but not
succeeding.

What should have happened?:
Set the scratch disk paths for captured video, captured audio,
video previews,
audio previews, and conformed audio.

Product version:
* Product: Adobe Premiere Pro.
* Version: 1.0 (purchased in 2004, installed in 2007).

Platform information:
* Hardware: Gateway E-4000, P4, 2.4 GHz (purchased in 2002,
generally running fine).
* OS Version: Windows XP Pro SP2
* RAM: 512 MB
* Color Depth: Medium (16 bit)
* Display Card: nVidia GeForce4 MX 440
* Resolution: 1024 x 768
* Digital Video: Matrox RT.X100
* Sound: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy
* drives on primary IDE: WD 80 GB, WD 120 GB
* drives on secondary IDE: WD 500 GB, Memorex DVDUR/RW 8412AJ

[ScottS]

Problem solved/avoided. I was able to set the scratch disks by
shutting down some services and using the Premiere Pro project presets
instead of the Matrox project presets. I don't know which of the
services might have caused the problem--maybe Symantec AntiVirus, IIS,
or Maxtor One-touch. The problem seemed worse on a project with Matrox
project presets, so maybe there was some incompatibility between
Matrox and Symantec AntiVirus?

I stopped experimenting when I realized that the scratch disks only
have to be set once--not once per project as I thought I had read in
the thread titled "Premiere Pro and hard drive set up." Premiere Pro
automatically creates project-specific subfolders for the preview and
conformed audio files, so we don't have to.

Now that I could set the scratch disks, I followed the advice of
several postings in this newsgroup, specializing the C: drive to
running Windows and Premiere Pro, the D: drive to managing projects
and captured audio and video, and the E: drive to managing audio and
video previews and conformed audio. Thanks for the advice. I was happy
to get it after looking and not finding it in the Premiere Pro
documentation.

[ScottS]

I've found more here about using multiple scratch disks than about
using a separate export disk.

But in the user manuals and on-line help there are more tips about the
export disk than the scratch disks. The Matrox manual recommends a
separate export disk, but doesn't say anything about multiple scratch
disks. Premiere Pro pops up a tip suggesting a separate export disk,
but doesn't recommend locations for the scratch disks.

Is there an overall rule on how to use both the scratch disks and the
export disk?

I'd think that if there were three disk drives, the first would be for
running the software (e.g. Windows and Premiere Pro), the second would
be for reading (e.g. clips used in a project), and the third would be
for writing (i.e. exporting). And if there's not much reading to do
while capturing, the second disk would be for writing (because the
captured clips would later be read). Yes?