Vista - TV Wonder -- The Long Hello....

This computer is running the Vista Ultimate 64-bit OS.

Trying to install an ATI TV tuner card. It is a TV Wonder 600 PCIE, that is, PCI Express. I have now installed it twice, using the most recent drivers downloaded from the ATI site.

Here is what happens. At first, the installation succeeds. The TV Tuner works in both ATI's media software or in the Windows Media Center. Actually it works better in the Media Center.

However, when I power down, and then power up again, Vista will not boot for about 15 or 20 minutes. All that appears on the screen during this period is the word Microsoft, and a green symbolic crawl. I call this The Long Hello.

When Vista finally boots, everything is fine -- except the TV Tuner has been utterly lost. Neither Media Center nor the ATI software can detect the Tuner. Vista cannot detect the presence of the hardware. As for the driver, who knows where it went?

To re-install, I can restore the system to a pre-installation date, clean up the leftover ATI files, and start over. Now the system will ask for a driver, as indeed it should. I install the driver, the TV works fine, etc. But as soon as I power down, the show is over. Once again it takes Vista 15 minutes to boot, and when it finally comes up, it has somehow deleted all consciousness of the TV tuner.

I have read that Vista sometimes swallows drivers, and that seems to be what's happening here.

Thank you for your insights.