offline files hanging on saving excel files

I am experiencing a problem when trying to save excel spreadsheets offline,
intermittently it will hang saving an excel file forcing me to hold down the
power button. The problem appears on linked spreadsheets. The problem occurs
on larger size files more frequently. I am able to do a “Save As” and save to
the C Drive but lose the ability to synchronize automatically. I am running
Office 2003 and XP SP2. I am up to date on all the latest patches.

Any Suggestions

Thanks