Windows 2K is finding new hardware that doesn't exist

[Relztrah]

Now this is one I haven't encountered before. I'm refurbishing a machine (an old Dell Dimension) and reinstalled Windows 2000. At some point when I was getting all Windows updates I rebooted and somehow about 20-30 unknown devices appeared in the Device Manager, and of course the Found New Hardware wizard launched for each of them. It took me an hour to disable them all, but now they're baaaaack. This is like something out of a bad horror movie, except that it's not a movie. It's really happening! See the image if you don't believe me.

http://i26.tinypic.com/2qv9sva.jpg

I was thinking I could disable the Found New Hardware wizard by running msconfig, but apparently msconfig is not part of Win2K because when I try to run it, it's not there. Any ideas? I'm not going to add any hardware to this clunker because it already has everything it needs so if there's simply a way to disable the Found New Hardware wizard, that will do. But of course discovering and correcting the reason it's finding it in the first place is probably the best route to take.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Relztrah

[mjc]

Have you installed any motherboard/chipset drivers yet?

[Relztrah]

No. The only driver I've needed to install has been for the Ethernet card, but I've used that same driver before on other machiens with no problem. I did flash the BIOS as well, but everything was working fine even after that.

Prior to refurbishing it I installed a newer, larger HDD but I had previously run fdisk and format on it before installing Windows 2000. So, nothing on the new HDD could be causing this, as far as I know.

In fact the system was running normally and I was doing my normal refurbish routine of downloading and installing all Windows upstates (SP4 w/ Update Rollup 1 in this case), AVG, SpywareBlaster, Adobe Reader, etc. but after downloading and installing IE6 I began getting all these ghost devices. I uninstalled IE6 and downloaded and began using Mozilla Firefox 3, but the problem persists.

I've seen a lot of weird things on a computer, but never this.

[Sylvander]

Get msconfig for Win2000 here. (http://www.perfectdrivers.com/howto/msconfig.html)

Use Unknown Device Identifier (http://www.zhangduo.com/unknowndeviceidentifier.html) to check whether those "Unknown Devices" really exist [as real hardware for which no drivers have been installed] or are just figments of the registry's imagination.

[Relztrah]

I downloaded and installed the Unknown Device Identifier, but I'm not sure what information I'm looking for from it. Attached is the log.

[Sylvander]

You should be looking for items of hardware...
Identified by Unknown Device Identifier [UDI]...
That are not identified by Device Manager...
[Are just listed as "Unknown Device"]

I notice there are items listed in "DeviceList.txt" that include the word "Unknown".
e.g.
PCI Modem Enumerator
Vendor: Conexant Systems
PCI Class Simple Communication (Other)
Is this identified by Device Manager?

[Paul Komski]

Did all "Windows Updates" include any hardware driver updates. I have had this cause all sorts of problems to exiting good installs and now never ever download such updates.

Personally I would create an SP4 slipstreamed CD and start over or else use it to do a repair installation which should re-set all the current hardware but leave the data and programs intact. As far as I remember it's the same basic procedure as for WinXP (http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm).