Device Manager missing "display adapters" entry

I was having an old system which was dying so I rebuilt the system with a new AM2+ motherboard, cpu, ram, video card. I booted off the original installation CD with Windows XP and with the original drive installed, and told the CD to repair the existing Windows installation. The updating actually went quite well and everything is working fine. But I am not able to get the ATI catalyst software to load because it says no ATI driver is installed, even after I've installed the full correct catalyst package direct from ATI's website (HD4890). When I go into Device Manager there is no longer a "display adapters" entry showing in the list of hardware, and my video card is now showing under "Unknown" at the bottom of the list of hardware. If I go into DISPLAY inside Control Panel, I do see the video card listed as a 4800 series ATI video card attached to multiple displays?

Can anyone please help. Thanks

Even I was having a similar problem with a repair installation for a new motherboard a while back. Can you try to open Device Manager > View Menu > select: Show Hidden Devices. If you have the same condition I had you will find duplicate and phantom devices listed. Phantom devices would be for the old hardware that no longer exists. I carefully (always research and verify) removed all the phantoms, then either determined which duplicate was not needed or removed both devices and loaded the drivers fresh. I suspect that you will have a phantom video adapter that is blocking your attempts.

Thanks, I have checked that out and cannot find anything useful. I have taken another hard drive, reduped the old drive, and went through the upgrade procedure again. This time I checked after I removed things from 'add/remove hardware". Apparently the "display adapters" is in device manager until I remove the old Nvidia drivers. That is when the display adapters entry disappears from device manager and my video card becomes "unknown".

I think that the operating system does not "know" that you've changed motherboards, so the nVidia drivers will remain until you actually remove them. You need to first check the ATI or nVidia programs folder to see if there is an uninstall tool there. If not, check add/remove programs. Now go into safe mode (F8 during boot). Remove all instances of display driver software from uninstall tool or add/remove first.

Even I had this issue wit the no "Display Adapters" entry in Device Manager. Also none of the card from Ati or Nvidia were loading. The motherboard installed was having a VIA chipset. I uninstalled the VIA CPU to AGP2.0/AGP3.0 Controller (motherboard driver) under System Devices in Device Manager and then restarted. After that XP reloaded the motherboard driver and then I was able to install either video card.