I think I may have the same "hang" problem on my home system, but am not sure... my computer will hang at the white windows screen, with the "---" (dashes) about half way across...

However, if I have a cd loaded in the drive (any cd) the computer will not hang and boots perfectly. No CD loaded, computer hangs. This has been driving me crazy a long time.

It gets more interesting... I wanted to update my computer at work so I decided to buy the same MB I have at home (Intel D845WNL). Since I had the "hang" problem on the home computer I decided to install the new MB at home and take the MB from home and install it at work.

After I installed the new MB at home, viola! The "hang" problem was gone. CD or no CD the system boots perfectly...

But, guess what? Now the computer at work "hangs" unless a CD is loaded! So the problem has followed the MB which totally baffles me.

Both computers are configured almost identically (W2k/SP4)... I have checked all bios settings related to the CD drive and all seems normal (set on "Auto").

Can anyone shed any light on this? It all seem to start after I tried to install Adaptec Easy CD Creator 6, although I do not know if that caused the problem. I have since uninstalled that version and gone back to 5.x.

I had a problem when I tried to uninstall Adaptec Easy CD Creator. Although the unistall program was supposed to have done the job, whenever I tried to install a particular program, a message appeared that there was a clash with the CD creator. In the end I searched for all relevant files using the W2K search, deleted them (they were supposed to be uninstalled). Then I went into the registry and cleaned that out. I was then able to install a particular program. If you suspect that it is the CD creator then there is a chance that there are remnants of 6 still on your system. The best thing would be to uninstall, search for files and delete, and then scour the registry for the name and delete. Then reinstall CD Creator 5 and see if the problem persists. You can get further information of what you need to delete from Ulead. The registry is best handled using a freeware program called regseeker. It's a mighty powerfull program, safe to use as long as you check the box for backup (just in case).

Tonto, I guess I am baffled as to why the new MB cured the problem at home and introduced it at work. Back when I decided to upgrade to CD 6 it was after the first reboot that the system hung. I worked on it for hours trying to figure out the problem. I even did a full restore from a prior back-up and that did not solve the problem, I was totally baffled at this point.

I jumped on another computer and did some research through the Roxio boards and saw where someone mentioned a similar problem and said when they unhooked their CD drive the computer booted normally. Sure enough, I tried that and my system booted right up. More research yielded the "load a CD solution" and that also worked for me. The problem is I always forget to leave a disc in the tray and end up coming back to my computer to find it frozen at that screen.

I only attempted a version 6 install at home, never at work. At work I have upgraded to the latest 5.x versions as they have some out.

I believe I did a full and clean uninstall (registry and all) when I had the original problem at home, to reinstall version 5.x.

Either way, what would "follow" the MB to my work computer that would cause this conflict? Wouldn't something have to be affected in the MB bios or settings since the MB change solves or adds the hang problem? The bios update versions are the same on both MB's.