> also the old IB before FB started) under WINDOWS ONLY connects for the
> first time (that is : there are no other users connected) to some
> specific databases (even if fixed,sweeped, backed up & restored), the
> connection can take up to 2 minutes, the disk seems really busy, and
> the CPU shows "Idle :99%".

Are you saying that it only happens to certain databases?

Alan