IE crashes when newform.aspx page is accessed in Sharepoint (WSS)

Hi,

We recently purchased a server with Windows Server 2003 R2 installed. I added Windows Sharepoint Services as a role after installing Microsoft SQL Server 2005. The installation went smooth and I was able to create a virtual server; however, after adding an "announcement" web part, a new announcement cannot be posted without IE crashing. Specifically, when the link is clicked, the following happens:

1) The browser attempts to connect to http://ptdocs2003/lists/announcements/newform.aspx?source=http%3A%2F%2Fptdocs2003%2Fdefault%2Easpx
2) Internet Explorer displays the error "Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."
3) The options to Debug, Send Error Report, or Don't Send are displayed (Send Error Report has been repeatedly selected, with no fixes or suggestions being given afterwards; Debug has been tried on another workstation running VS2005, but it errors out with a message referring to a lack of access to the source code)
4) Error 'details' gives the following information:
Error Signature:
AppName: iexplore.exe       AppVer: 6.0.2900.2180       ModName: unknown
ModVer: 0.0.0.0       Offset: 00000010
5) If the page "http://ptdocs2003/lists/announcements/newform.aspx" is accessed directly without going through the "add announcements" link, the same error occurs.

I won't post the error contents or the .txt file associated with the error unless requested to do so.

We have troubleshot the problem down to accessing the "newform.aspx" page - if we try to access the page directly it crashes; however if we redirect the link to "add announcement" to another page, the link works fine. I believe it is something specific to the code that does this.

According to my IE Help, I am running IE 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519. I have also attempted to access the site from a Windows 2000 Server browser running IE 6.0.2600.0000 and was met with the same results.

If I access the "newform.aspx" page from the WSS server (ptdocs2003), which is running IE 6.0.3790.1830, it works fine. Also, accessing the page using Mozilla Firefox works fine.

I have completely reformatted the server and re-setup Sharepoint; I have also changed the asp.net version for the virtual server from 1.1 to 2.0 (in the IIS 6.0 settings). None of these changes are making any difference. This problem only seems to occur when adding an announcement; all other web parts appear to work fine. Changing themes, virtual servers, etc does not affect the problem.

I'm going to set the difficulty at 'extremely difficult' since i could not find *any* information on microsoft.com, experts-exchange.com, or any other site i googled.

note: links above are to an internal site and are not externally accessible; they are for reference only.