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Hardware shown in BIOS listings 'goes missing' when WinXP starts.

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phowarth:
Firstly thank you for such a helpful site.
I've tried your software tool to find a missing DVD/CD and the Windows repair suite but without success, so I wonder if anyone has any alternative solutions please?
My PC comprises an Asus P5KPL-AM motherboard running WinXP SP3. Two hardware connection points on the motherboard stop working properly once Windows starts.
Any optical or hard disks I connect to either SATA 2 and/or to the EIDE 'slave' position show up perfectly in BIOS listings during boot-up, but always disappear from the hardware list in My Computer and Disk Management admin tools once the operating system has launched.
I've tried the simple hardware-based tricks of swapping cables and moving the hard drives and DVD-RAMs around (and changing the EIDE hardware from master to slave to cable-select), but nothing has made any difference so I conclude that the problem isn’t the hardware but lies with WinXP.
It all used to work fine, so something I've added or updated a while back may be the culprit. With regret I can't restore the system back that far as I didn't notice it in time before one of the system clean and renovation programs I use wiped away the old ‘system restore’ settings.
Another symptom which may be connected is that on boot I always get the 'found new hardware' notification, but its type is 'unknown' and the system can never find it. I don't believe I have added any hardware for over a year so have no idea what it thinks it has found. If I run Unknown Device Identifier it says that the Compaq NC3120 Fast Ethernet NIC is an ‘unknown device’ – but I believe that’s been part of the system for many years.
Any solutions appreciated with thanks.

Shane:
It is always possible it isnt Windows but the ports going bad. Here is an easy way to test that :-)

Download the Ubuntu live cd
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

This will let you boot Ubuntu Linux right off the cd. If the hardware doesnt show up there either then you have a bad motherboard. If they do showup then we know it is something in Windows :-)

Lets go from there.

Shane

phowarth:
Thank you for your reply and suggestion Shane.
I've now tried the Ubuntu route and all drives are visible and accessible, so a WinXP problem seems to be indicated.
PH
PS Apologies that I forgot to mention that I had previously also tried Windows Fixit tool 'Find missing CD/DVD' with no result.

Shane:
OK good :-)

So know we know it is a Windows only problem.

So the first thing is go to the device manager. Do we have anything with a yellow ! or ?

Post a screen shot of the device manager for me.

Shane

phowarth:
The only yellow symbol is the one mentioned in my first message regarding an unknown device - all otherwise seems fine.
Please see Device Manager screenshot attached.

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