Slow Win2k after Debian install

["jerry k" <jerryk@randomize.freeserve.co.uk>]

I'm new to GNU/Linux & Debian and am having a problem with installing to a
system running Win2k.  I've done a lot of reading on the dual-boot subject
but haven't seen anything to make me believe there's anything wrong with my
setup.  Basically, my partitions looked like this:

Primary:  C: / hda1
Primary, extended  {
    D: / hda5
    E: / hda6
    F: / hda7
    G: / hda8        }

hda8 was fairly large and mostly unused so I deleted it using partition
magic in DOS and created hda8, 9 & 10 (for /, /home & swap) using cfdisk.
Debian installed just fine :-) and i made a boot disk in the meantime
(rather than installing lilo) with the aim of dd'ing the bootsector to c:
and using winboot (or whatever they call it) for switching, at least until I
figure out lilo.conf.

The problem occurred when i booted up Windows.  It took forever, maybe about
10 minutes with lots of disk activity, and when it had booted explorer was
sloooow; not annoyingly slow, catastrophicly slow, taking 2 minutes to show
a context menu.  hda8/9/10 now showed up in Windows as Local Disk G:,
filesystem type unknown, and it became clear that the problem only occurs
when explorer needs to show G: in MyComputer, save dialogs and the like.

I've now deleted the extended partition completely and so can be flexible
with the partitioning scheme.  3 vfat Primary partitions and one extended
for Debian would be acceptable, but I'd like to know what the problem is,
since I've seen similar setups work for other people with no problems and it
seems a bit limiting to not allow Windows and Debian to share the extended
partition.

Any advice or pointers to info would be much appreciated.

Cheers!

Jerry K