I hesitate to bring this up since you've already taken drastic measures, but...didn't you say the first transfer, Quiet Riot, went okay? I mean, that suggests your hardware was probably okay. Not that you couldn't benefit from an upgrade, but that's why people suggested looking at software settings, like input level.
You may know already, but CoolEdit has record level meters under the Options menu. I always check those while playing my source to see if I need to adjust input levels in the Windows mixer (or at the source) before recording in CE.
Hope your torment ends soon.
-kent