For cs3 you need the 4.6 camera raw plugin to open D300 files:

(cs2 won't open those files unless they are converted to dngs)

windows:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4040

mac:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4039

If your using the nikon D300S then you would need the 7.1 DNG converter to convert your raw files to dng copies which cs2 and cs3 should open.

Could you give more details about the batch resize problem?

What operating system?

Are you using an action plus Automate>Batch or File>Scripts>Image Processor?

Do you get an error dialog?

Do you have the action and batch dialog set so only one file opens at a time, instead of opening all the files into photoshop and then processing them?

First thing i'd try is resetting the cs3 preferences file:

  Restore all preferences to default settings   

It can be a little tricky.

Press the keys just after double clicking the cs3 icon or single clicking if the icon is on the taskbar or start menu.

Could you post a screenshot of the action and the settings for the batch dialog?

What operating system?

Noel may be right about your system running low on resources.

What resolution are you resizing the images to and what are the pixel dimensions of the starting images?

Does the error log say anything?

How much ram do you have?

I guess a lot of factors could be the cause, but since your on a 32 bit system, i believe cs3 can only use around 1.6 gb of ram, regardless of how much ram your system has.

If i may ask, why do you need such big images?

Are you resampling the image or just changing the resolution without resample?

Did you try using less files for the batch? Say do 25 at a time.

Of the files that do get saved are they able to open back into cs3?

Is cs3 updated to 10.01?

Did it ever work in the past before you had the system reinstalled?

Out of curiosity, are the images remaining open in Photoshop as the batch is processing them, or are they closing one by one?

If the former, you may just be overwhelming Photoshop CS3's abilities to maintain many open documents.  You might be able to correct that by adding a document close operation in the action you're batching.

Another thought is this:  Recent versions come with a script called Image Processor, which sounds like it can do what you want.  What I don't remember is whether Photoshop CS3 had Image Processor.

If this kind of work is common for you, and especially if you're seeing things break when trying to process a lot of data, you should consider upgrading your computer, your operating system, and your Photoshop to modern 64 bit standards.  All these things have made great strides in power and reliability in the last decade since 32 bit computers with only a few gigabytes of RAM and Photoshop CS3 were current.

Another possibility, if you're not wanting to go down that road right away, might be to use another tool to do your resizing.  As one example, the free program IrfanView (for PC) can easily be set up to extract raw file preview JPEGs and to do batch resizing and format conversions.

-Noel