@Duzzy: Thanks for the "reverse engineering". At least ptbg's machine has been "improved" by a number of changes chasing down this issue.
@ptbg: Thanks for posting the Speccy screenshots.
Now for a little clean up after this seemingly futile attempt to resolve the "press any key" issue.
I was looking through the System Information you posted earlier and I see a number of extraneous programs you might have downloaded trying to fix the issue. There are some others I'm not familiar with, but you only need one AV program (plus MalwareBytes) - you have two.
This recommendation has nothing to to with the "press any key" issue - it's simply housekeeping. Removing some of the programs should improve your system performance (Acronis has scheduled updates & backups - I don't know if you have storage for backups, so why run it). There are a number of Startup programs that could be disabled.
Removing others might prevent future problems (third party bots, blasters, tune-ups). I personally tend to only trust a few vendors for GREAT software and I use only what I absolutely need on my system.
Pgms I don't think you need
-- your decision though.
Puran Defrag (Windows 7 defrag is fine)
Spybot (unnecessary)
SpywareBlaster (unnecessary)
TuneUp Utilities 2012 (unnecessary)
Acronis (unnecessary - Yeah, I know... I pointed you to Acronis on WD)
Pgms I think are redundant or unnecessary
-- You might have these by choice or they came with you machine. You will have to decide if you need them.
????? Aomei Partition Assistant Home Edition 4.0: Free Partition Magic alternative -
AOMEI Partition Assistant is magic partition manager software for Windows 8/7/Vista/XP and Server 2000/2003/2008
????? gBurner: is a powerful and easy-to-use CD/DVD/BD burning software, which allows you to create data, audio and video CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, make bootable data discs, create multisession discs. gBurner is also a disc image file processing software, which allows you to open, create, edit, extract, convert and burn disc image files.
????? HFSExplorer: View Mac OS X files from a Windows partition
????? Oracle VM VirtualBox: enables desktop or laptop computers to simultaneously run multiple operating systems, allowing users to get the most flexibility and utilization out of their PCs.
Note: See the tutorials on virtualization in Windows 7
????? RocketDock: is a smoothly animated, alpha blended application launcher. It provides a nice clean interface to drop shortcuts on for easy access and organization.
????? Sophos: Award Winning Antivirus, Email Spam Protection and Endpoint Management Software for Windows, Mac and Linux
????? ESET\ESET Smart Security: complete Internet security suite, built on the award-winning ThreatSense antivirus and antispyware engine.
????? Unlocker: If you've ever been unable to delete a file in Windows, and can't figure out what program's using it, Unlocker is the solution. Simply right-click the folder or file and select Unlocker. If the folder or file is locked, a window listing of lockers will appear.
Startup items
everest.exe - shortcut (might just be in the wrong folder)
taskmgr.exe - shortcut (might just be in the wrong folder)
RocketDock - gone if you uninstall
SpybotSD TeaTimer - gone if you uninstall
egui - ESET security (depending on which security pkg you choose, this one should stay, or gone if you decide on Sophos)
If you could change the IDE detection time to 0 seconds and stop displaying the JMicron screen, that would "solve" the issue, but there doesn't seem to be a way to access those settings. Per Duzzy, it is controlled solely by the BIOS and I agree, no driver or registry entry is going to change that. I was thinking the install settings affected the BIOS - which Duzzy points out... "There is no flash in the update"
The best and least expensive solution is probably to purchase a PCI IDE card (around 12-14 euros) as I mentioned in
post #147 and completely ignore the JMicron controller (disable/uninstall).
A more expensive solution would be to purchase a larger SATA drive, connect it to an available Intel SATA connector, move your data from the WD to the new drive, exchange the IDE cable you bought for an IDE-SATA adapter cable and hook up your NEC OD to an available Intel SATA connector and completely ignore the JMicron controller (disable/uninstall).
A third solution would be to purchase external cases and drive the WD and NEC off USB ports and completely ignore the JMicron controller (disable/uninstall).
I sure am good at spending your money, aren't I. The key to all of the above solutions is to completely ignore the JMicron controller (disable/uninstall).
Duzzy's evaluation is sound. I presumed there was a flash in the JMicron update...ooops, notice I didn't ASSume - thank you very much Duz, for looking deeper!
Μπορείτε επίσης φίλος μου, κι εσείς. Είμαστε όλοι μάθησης - Γεια σου ... Είμαι ακόμα εκμάθηση της ελληνικής γλώσσας! | You too my friend, you too. We're all learning - hey... I'm even learning Greek!