Very, very strange. No, PLoP won't make a difference, it could have if the problem was USB related, but it sounds a lot more like a problem with the internal disk (which does not make much sense if it's an IDE device). Does the motherboard use the "Standard Dual PCI IDE" driver or anyway it uses another one normally? Or, more generally, has your source any integrated drivers? It sounds a lot like a conflict of some kind, but right now I have no ideas on how to check/troubleshoot it. Let's see if Ilko has some. jaclaz thanks for reply