Could it have been so simple? And If it were, why didn't you say so?
Don't know why the hangs in IE, but .....
Disconnected the storage drive. Turned it back on and am surfing the internet, so far with no hangs. Video drivers have returned to normal.
To be clear- turned it on this morning, went straight to IE - hangs-- left it there. Switched via KVM to other computer to really get some work done and I hear a system beep. It hung for approx 1hr30m and restarted itself. ( I left it deliberately to hope the IE would turn itself in, so to speak and Microsoft would shoot me an error and a what to do about it. The computer started all by itself by passing any safe mode- etc and went straight to windows. So I grab the mouse, and dang it's hung again and the HD light is still on like it's searching. I leave it -again - clock second hand on gadget stopped as well. So I switch back to other computer to keep working and I hear a startup noise from the Win 7 machine. I switch back to it and it's still hung, ctl shft esc does not work. (PS I took the Win 7 off the KVM switch and put ps2 mouse and keyboard - thinking the usb that others have been listing as trouble may be caused by the KVM switch). I wait, still hung and finally I am sick of it, as someone said I wanted to drop kick it into the sea. I shut it down. I collect all the OS I have available starting with XP and line em up thinking I'm going to load them all on one after the other until it bleeds.
Then I restarted with the XP disk in, got all the way to install and only one drive is listed, the 80 gb. I'm almost ready to pull the plug on Win 7--- finger poised over go-ahead make-my day XP installation and it occurred to me... if XP can't find my large SATAII drive what makes me think Win 7 can. Shut er off. unplugged the power to the IDE drive and restarted and well..... Im still here......
I will try re-cabling the 80gb to the secondary port, and if it don't work then it will go into storage. And I will return and post to myself.
Thank you for just being here, I don't feel like I'm all alone in this.