Additionally, clean out the History Folder. And if you have another partition, try moving Favorites off so it isn't scanned. Long addresses or a corrupt URL can cause problems. In fact, scandisk can break long URLs (The type you get performing a search) and ruin some of your Favorites.
When you move Favorites, just right click on it and continue to hold the mouse button down. When you releas ethe mouse after having dropped the Favorites Folder, choose "Move" from the pop up menu. The Registry will find Favorites and use it in that location. I keep mine on E:\ If Windows falls, my Favs are safe there. (Same for My Documents)