Lightroom :: 4.4 Hangs And Won't Import Photos

I have been having problems with Lightroom 4.4 and importing photos from an external hard drive. I've worked with this configuration for years with no problem. I've been working with 4.4 since it was released as an RC, no issues. It started to be very slow to move into the import modual/function. Then it would hang every time and no sources for import would come up and the program would just stop and I'd get the "not responding" message. I thought it might be a corrupt catalog so I tried one of my backup catalogs, I tried different catalogs all together. I deleted the preference file and that seemed to be the beginning of the end for my current installation. When I tried to open Lightroom (via the catalog file) after deleteting the preference file it was like Lightroom couldn't/wouldn't rewrite the file and open. It would hang. Eventually I did get it to open up but I had to walk away and let it work on opening for a good 10 minutes. It finally came up but was too slow to work with. I gave up and decided to uninstall it and download and install again. It is still wonky and slow and will not import photos at all. I know it is difficult to diagnose something like this but I'm at my wits end. I've used Lightroom since the very beginning and I've come to be quite dependant on it. I just don't even know where to look to figure this out. I've browsed around for import problems but haven't found a whole lot of information or examples. Oh I should mention I tried creating a new empty catalog on my internal hard drive in case the problem somehow was with the external drive but that isn't the case. Actually I have catalogs on a few different external drives. It doesn't matter where the photos are, Lightroom is not happy at the moment. It barely responds to any input and crashes if I try to import photos. I also uninstalled and disabled my Carbonite because I know that can cause problems with some programs and I am desperate to get Lightroom going again.