OK, I clicked show hidden devices, it shows a category called non plug and play devices and within that menu there is one that says IDE channel. That's all there is as far as IDE, ATAPI. There is an option to uninstall. Should I?
Check your bios for an option if you are using a plug and play OS and choose yes.
However, I just had to reinstall windows on a compaq desktop because the ide/atapi driver wouldn't install correctly. The only solution was to reinstall windows.
Try uninstalling it under non plug and play and reboot after changing the bios to yes for plug and play OS.
Yeah, I already tried that. I've seriously tried every possible combination/solution I can think of short of taking a 9 iron to the damn thing. It will even boot a dvd from the bios such as my windows install dvd, it's obviously something to do with windows itself. I just wish i could understand why at this point. Thanks so much for your help.