my CDRW and HD are on separate IDE channels with the hd on IDE1 primary master, and the CDRW as secondary master on IDE2. However, i will uninstall Adaptec and hope for the best. Being deprived of my pc for a whole week has made me cranky. As for the WinME thing, I read the horror stories on the forums and decided to exclude ME as an option. I'll let you know if uninstalling Adaptec works. BTW, how you encountered this before to point to Adaptec as the source of the problem? Thanks to all.