OT: No color for videos

[Robert Baer]

OS: Win2K, with SP4 installed and Update Rollup 1 for Win2K SP4
(which makes the OS SP5 AFAIK).
Browser: Seamonkey 2.7 .

TWO different hard drives, one used for ages; one new one (made in
last few days).

BOTH have the following drivers and software installed: Divx Codec,
Divx Converter, Divx Player, Media 9 Player*, M$ WinDoz Media Video 9
VCM, NVIDIA Drivers (am using separate video capture card to drive DELL
monitor), WinDoz Media Encoder 9 Series, WinDoz Media Player system
update (9 Series) VLC media player 1.1.11.
BOTH have same video plugins: Shockwave Flash 10.1.102.64 and WinDoz
Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library 3.0.2.628 .
(*): In Control Panel, add/remove programs, the Media PLayer is shown
on the old HD, but is not seen on the new HD (but it works).

On the net, everything that should have color shows color: web pages,
news reports, videos, etc no exceptions.
NO difference as to what is seen between hard drives.

BUT, download ANY video and try to play it..
Old drive IN COLOR, new drive, gray(!!).

I tried various video formats with a number of players.
The chart below uses N=nogo, C=color, and G=grey only.

video media--> WMV V17.AVI CLOCK.AVI MPG MP4
Media Player 6.4 . . G G C G N
Media Player 9.0 . . G G C G N
VLC . . . . . . . . G G C G G
DIVX . . . . . . . . G C C G N

Notes: "V17.AVI" is a standard AVI, in this case a movie of some
ducks swimming;
"CLOCK.AVI" is a sequence of frames made by POV Ray,
similar to making an animated GIF.

So, i must apologize,the problem is obviously NOT with VLC, it is
more fundamental.
With that said, any pointers to a solution are welcome.
Again, this is only on my "new" hard drive.

Help??