Vista - USB Pen Drive Causing Vista Ultimate to Hang

I have been experiencing problems when using my usb pen drives, when inserted
vista finds the drives with no trouble and installs them fine, autoplay opens
and lets me access the drive, however when i try to navigate around the drive
after this the whole system grinds to a holt and does not let me do anything
within explorer until i remove the pen. This is only occuring on my ultimate
edition as i have the premium edition on my laptop which it is working fine
with.
Please Advise

I can't help but wonder since its a usb flash drive if Windows Vista Ultimate might be trying to use it for its 'ReadyBoost' feature which lets you use usb flash driver as 'virtual memory'?

You could try disabling the service for 'ReadyBoost' and see if that helps you.

To do so, type 'Services' in the start search. This will open a list of the services running on your pc sorted by alphabetic order. Scroll down to 'ReadyBoost'. Double click on 'ReadyBoost' and choose 'Stop'.

If this resolved it, you may wish to set the services from manual/automatic to disabled so it doesn't launch when you connect your usb drive.

Another option would be on another pc like a win xp machine, copy all the info off then reformat the usb drive as ntfs doing a complete format and not a quick format. Copy the info back on and see if that help's you browse the drive better.

Third option, update your bios and motherboard drivers in case there's an issue with your usb controller properly recognizing the device. I recommend this option last as you said Windows Vista finds and seems to install the drive fine.