Thanks alzdba

Yes, I will be moving them to different databases and marking them as read only, so they are backed up once too.

I just started adminitrating sql server 2000, and...

Jonathan thanks a lot. That is the problem. I will appy the patch or just workaround it.

cmore thanks for your help too.

Yes we are thinking on changing the column datatype.

The tables have a clustered index on the primary key. There are many columns, related to customer information.

I am Using SQL Server...

Thanks for the workaround mdaniel

Are you updating this table constantly?

YES

Does it use the same index for both Count statements?

YES

You might try DBCC dbreindex.

It does not workaround the problem. I need to DROP the index...