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I didn't need those particular files, so I just deleted them by deleting their parent directory from an explorer window. It could have just been coincidence that the hang happened when "revisiting" those particular files.
Even now, if this fixes the problem, it's hard to figure out what really happened (and not worth the time to diagnose more completely). It was probably the drive failing, but still, Windows should fail more gracefully when faced with a resource that's having trouble. It surprised me when the system hung even when I took virtual memory duties away from that drive. I could see a failing drive causing an OS a headache when it's swapping to it, but when doing more "routine" I/O, just reading files or folders, it shouldn't just lose its place that badly.
Maybe the drive was failing harder and drawing too much power in spikes, and thus causing other hardware problems?
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