LifeinAsia - 7:38 pm on Apr 14, 2009 (gmt 0)

Oops, ya, missed that. :)

The only other thing that I can think of is that the underlying file structure may be outta whack and needs to be defragged (or whatever the *nix equivalent is).

Also, since the query went so quickly on the second table without the mediumblob column, try the SELECT query on the original table, but exclude the mediumblob column. (In other words, explicitly list all the columns except the mediumblob column.) Does that make any difference?