"My Pictures" and "My Documents" folders freezing?

[Xaeli]

About a week or two ago my "My Pictures" and "My Documents" folders started freezing when I would access them from the start menu. The thumbnails of things I have in there don't load, I check to make sure that as soon as I open it that it isn't frozen (by hovering the cursor over the arrows to scroll up or down, and see if it 'highlights'), if it isn't, I try scrolling down or clicking on a file once, then the whole folder freezes, then causes my computer to freeze. I can't save pictures, attach them to emails, or send them through messenger without the freezing.

Someone mentioned that I should click on the Start menu, and right click on My Documents, click properties, if it shows me the information without freezing that the files are alright. I tried this and my computer didn't freeze.

I've tried repairing files using the original SP2 for Windows XP Home edition through the start up, sometimes it says that it is missing a file (.nls), or that a file is corrupt (.sys) and to press any key to exit and restart the computer. There has been an occasion where the repair actually went through, but it gave me a full list of commands to choose from, and yeah, I didn't know which to choose.

Would anyone have any suggestions or idea as to why this is happening, and what I could do to fix this?

[Midknyte]

I think you meant to try a repair install, not recovery console.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

[BipolarBill]

Scan for malware.

www.malwarebytes.org

Scan for viruses.

http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/

People are always downloading "free" videos and music with things like LimeWire. The default download location for these items is My Documents. If one of the "free" downloads is actually a virus or malware, the folder may behave as you describe. Remember that nothing is really "free".

Use CHKDSK to scan your hard drive for errors:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265

If you continue to have trouble, back up your documents and reinstall Windows. It's the only way to be sure.