Thank you for the wonderfully fast and comprehensive reply.
It certainly seems as if the photo organiser function has taken over, and even if I kill the Media Cataloger process, the software wants to go hunting for images in any drive that I attempt to open.
I was unable to come up with an answer in the newsgroup, but will follow your suggestions and post back if I can solve the problem.
Adobe Elements has a photo organiser function but it comes into play obediently when asked!