Excel 2007 extremely slow to delete cells

[coffent]

When I work with moderately large data sets, Excel 2007 is extremely slow to
delete the data in cells. For example in one case I have a worksheet with
28,000 rows. One column was populated with data using a Visual Basic
routine, which took only 1 second or so to make the calculations and write
the 28,000 cells. However, if I highlight those same 28,000 cells and push
"Delete", it will take Excel over 30 secs to remove the data. That's if I'm
lucky - other times it will take several minutes or crash the program. I've
turned off automatic workbook calculation so the problem is not that Excel
is updating other cells. Any ideas how to fix this problem?

 

[coffent]

One other thing I forgot to mention: the data in the 28,000 cells disappear
almost instantaneously. However then Excel simply sits there unresponsive
for 30 secs or more with an hourglass.