The events were in this order:

I removed 2 cards and added 1.

I went into add/remove hardware (which I never used in 2k before) to delete/remove instances of these cards.

Entries other than what I clicked on got removed. I thought it was a fuke so I continued to remove the other card.

Before I rebooted most of the hardware list in add/remove hardware was gone.

I rebooted and the new hardware wizard came up with all the missing hardware: highpoint controller, video card, network card, usb camera and I don't remember what else.

Anyone know what happened?

I thought I only clicked on one entry each time since it appears you can only remove one at a time anyway. I know I didn't click on the video card, usb camera, network card!