First, and this is more of a personal preference than anything, why aren't you using cd /d to change the folder and drive on one line?
cd /d e:\TRUE\grid\2011
or
cd /d c:\zzz\Precur~1
The reason I believe your second line isn't working is because you are using 8-dot-3 filename structure when you don't have to, and if there is any other file under the zzz file that starts with similar letters, you are asking for trouble. Why not use:
cd /d "c:\zzz\Precur..."
Using the quotes, you won't have any trouble with spaces or the like. Because it is a shell, my though is that it will do the conversions to 8-dot-3 file structure when the shell is started, and having the file already in 8-dot-3 is screwing up it's functions somehow. Try it and see what you come up with. If you are still having issues, try posting the full file path of the "c:\zzz" target so we can try to provide better and more accurate help.