If, by chance, the laptop is the machine you used to edit your stuff, there is the remote possibility that you are the victim of Microsoft's attempts to be overly helpful.

Especially if you use one of the default "modern" WinXP setups, Windows attempts to keep track of what you work on, and in some circumstances may create and "update" shortcuts for you. The persistent insistence that "everything" has to be in "My Documents" is the tip of the iceberg here. Sometimes files are put there, but sometimes it's only a shortcut and the actual file goes somewhere else.

There also is a vaguely defined (vague to me at least) ability for Windows to update shortcuts to a file when you drag-and-drop move a file that the shortcut points to.

It should be rare, but working on a local copy of a web page could have "updated" your browser short cut so that when you try to open the web page Windows is trying to open the copy of the web page on your own machine. Usually, if the front page is missing, you'll get a "cannot open" kind of error message; but if a linked object isn't immediately found, Windows may attempt to search for it. A full drive search, especially with the slower drives common on laptops, may make it look like nothing is happening for a very long time. You won't get the "file not found" error message until Windows is happy with its own conclusion that it's looked everywhere.

I don't think this is too likely, but you should be able to check it quite simply by manually entering the URL for the website instead of using an existing shortcut to the site.

You may have already done this, but if you've only tried to connect using a "previously good" shortcut/bookmark to try to get to the website you may have "been helped" and Windows is trying to open the page from your laptop - or your bookmark may have been corrupted in some other way.

John