TheInquirer.net THANKS, AS USUAL to our readers who have come up with an answer to the "data invalid" problem that dogs people installing and swapping out cards with Windows XP.

This is not for the casual, the faint of heart, or for your grandma unless she happens to be Carly Fiorina.

Not can we guarantee it works, although several people swear by it after swearing at it (XP).

This error appears to be due to a protection problem in the Windows registry and can occur with a variety of drivers (sound cards and SCSI drivers have been reported). To fix this problem, go to Start, Run... and type "regedit" without the quotes to run the Registry Editor. Navigate to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetENUMPCI

and you will see a number of keys of the form "VEN_xxxx", where xxxx are strings like "1102&DEV_0004&SUBSYS_00011103&REV_04". Under each of these folders will be another folder with a long numerical name. Open each folder and look for the "DeviceDesc" which matches the hardware you are trying to install. Right Click on the "VEN_xxxx" for that device and select 'Permissions' and then tick "Allow" for "Full Control". Close Regedit and then continue with the installation of your device.

Big Thanks to Neowin.net