[Roy Dennis]

Before doing anything, use the Hoster Menu Help/Backup/Restore and create a backup of Hoster settings in case you need to restore.
Just to try and elimenate any external hard drive and existing playlist problems.
First of from your file menu select "New", this should leave you with an empy playlist, now using the search button or disc id option on main display load 1 track to the playlist and test to see if it plays OK without the long delays, if it does load about another 20 tracks
and test again.
If they play Ok using a new playlist then there must be something about using an old playlist that is causing it.
If you still get the slow problem delete all the files from the playlist and this time use the k-oke button and brows to the music folder and load some that way and test again.

If you still get the slow problem create a tempory folder on your C/ drive and copy & paste about 20 of your karaoke files into the tempory folder.
Now start another new playlist from the file menu, Now try using the K-Oke button and brows to the tempory folder on your C/drive and load 1 of the tracks to the playlist then see if that plays without the long delay, if it does load another 20 or so tracks via the K-oke button and test again.
If the problem persists then I'm baffeld at this point but if they play Ok from the C/drive then there seems to be a problem with the external drive.
Let us know how you get on after these tests.