Placed PDF crashing InDesign (CS4)?

I extracted and cropped a photo from a pdf and saved to a new pdf file. Then I placed it in my Indesign layout. Since then, several things keep happening -- the progress wheel starts spinning (forever) so I have to force quit, part of my toolbar disappears, or a dialog box appears notifying me that it has crashed.
These things happen when I try to resize the photo, or when I try to change the layer order, or for no apparent reason at all!
Is there any conflict with PDFs I should know about? Or any restrictions on use? Wouldn't just telling me be easier if there is? I don't know the original provenance of the PDF.
Should I save the PDF first in Photoshop?

Hi Peter, I'm back!
I went to the Apple Store and got my machine checked.
I worked on the document for about 15 seconds before it crashed. They "Reset
the Home Folder Permissions", check the memory, tested the RAM -- all O.K.
Then we created a new User Account. I created a new Adobe InDesign document
and worked in it for awhile and it didn't crash. So that said to my "Genius"
that the problem was with Adobe InDesign and I would likely have to
uninstall and reinstall the program.
When I got back home, I opened the file that had been crashing -- this time
in the new User Account and worked on it and it did NOT crash. I could make
it through this project working in the new directory. But I decided to call
Adobe Tech Support again and see what they said.
They said I might have to reinstall the program, but first there was
something else we could try that would avoid all that time and trouble.
So we threw the Adobe InDesign Preferences folder in the trash. We also
threw a folder called "Adobe Indesign 6.0" out.
Then I opened up the document and worked and it didn't crash. Only there
is still one problem: several palettes do not display -- they are empty and
I can't add anything to them (such as a new Swatch). They are:
Palettes:
Glyph sets
Character
Swatches
Object Styles
I'm not sure why these are missing and it's tricky trying to work without
them.
I went back to the new User Account and checked and these palettes are NOT
missing.
We tried copying the plist from the new User Account Preferences and pasting
it into the preferences for my old account, but that didn't work.
Any idea how to get my palettes back?
I'm spending so much time trying to get up and running that I'm running out
of time on this project, so if there's an easy answer that doesn't require a
total reinstall, I'd be grateful to hear it.
Many thanks,
beth

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