[MSUStevo]

Hey there Dave, cool to hear back from you.

Ya I wondered about that too. I'm so thankful your post made it into the search engines, otherwise I would have had to send the label maker back.

I had another problem a few weeks ago after installing Norton Ghost 10.0. Kept getting a Windows error - No media in the drive, or something to that effect, every time I started up the software. After some web searches discovered a tip about checking the drive letter assignments. Sure enough, my laptop's built in SmartMedia card reader assigned to drive letter D, changed it to I and the problem went away. The web so cool for finding obscure stuff like this that would leave those of us who are competent, yet not gurus, stumped.

BTW - I just noticed your animated avatar, very nice!

[DaveBurnett]

Here's another tip then.
If you have an older version of Ghost, use that. Version 10 is the old Drive Image and is not so good.
In any case, when you use it, always run it from the CD as if you were going to recover. Never run it from within windows. The reason is that it writes temporary stuff to the drive and then reboots anyway to run it from DOS, so you may as well do that bit yourself and reduce the risk of extra errors (which are common)

[jrhilton]

Dear all, if the solutions above e.g. RunOnce key in registery don't work, and you have McAfee VirusScan Enterprise (maybe other versions too), you must temporally disable "Access Protection" as this is designed to stop all new hardware being installed, as it basically stops all suspect looking changes to the registery. Diable it while you install the hardware and it will work fine, did the trick for me!

Cheers,
James

[Bulletproof]

I registered here just to thank you for this post. I was going nuts for about 4 hours, trying to figure out why my USB network adapter drivers would not install and kept going in continuous detection loop. I went on google as a last resort to see if I could find any information and this site is ranked #1 for that search. Thankfully, the registry key worked. I'm boggled how Microsoft could let something like this go on.

[BrandiM]

I've done the registry fix as described, but I am still getting the 'They system cannot find the file specified.' It doesn't go into the loop described above, but I just can not install SP2 on this machine.

It's a Compaq notebook, model number Evo N1015v

Any suggestions? Thanks!

[rodeognome]

1) use setup file if there is one i.e click on setup.exe to install driver

2) Double check you are have the correct driver

finally...

3) if the hardware has gone bad - no driver will install for it

[jontyUK]

Dave
You have solved a seemingly unfixable problem in seconds.
I had nearly given up on this!
Many thanks from a relieved Dell user
ps Don't buy Dell - built to last 12 months only

[DaveBurnett]

Curiously I find Dell machines, well the Laptops anyway, to be very good machines.

[Savaric]

Also had to register to post a thank you!
Three days of installing, uninstalling, registry cleaning and rebooting before I found your tip.

I was trying to install a Yamaha PSR-E403 keyboard (which required a usb midi driver), but kept failing with "system cannot find the file specified". Adding the RunOnce key solved it.

Of all the obscure solutions to install problems, this must be the worst I have ever seen. If not for your tip, I would never have solved it, so again, thank you!

/Sav

[batpuppy]

Dave,

I also registered just to say "Thank You". You have solved an annoying problem on two of my PCs.

Best Wishes,

Battus

[diamondirish]

I too registered simply to thank you - I didn't know how to tell my neighbours I had banjaxed their laptop by simply connecting the hubbys new birthday secret iPod!!!

Saviour!

[infotime]

After the third parallel card I attempted to install on a Dell E520 failed I brought the computer home. I hooked up a spare hard drive and did a clean install of Windows. As I suspected I could add the parallel card just fine. So, I went back to the old hard drive and tried again not knowing what I'd try next. I googled and found this thread. WOW!

Thank you so much for posting this fix!

[rudeboyintrouble]

Thank you, that did the trick.

Jorge

[tekel]

I also registered just to thank you regarding the RunOnce solution. I was trying to update video drivers for an intel mobo and have spent 2 days pulling my hair out. Your solution worked perfectly. Thanks again!

[Bigman397]

What if this trick doesn't fix the issue? Had a system that was infected by spyware, once I got done cleaning the spyware and junk out I went to update the drivers and such. It gives this error whenever I try to update any driver. Any clues as to what might be causing this?