Mystery hardware detection, Win 95

[Bazango]

I'm just getting a new board installed (Amptron PII-2200 dual, clone). I just swapped the HD from the old system (486) and it boots up fine except Win 95 keeps detecting some new hardware that I can't account for and have no drivers for. It tries to install a PCI Universal Serial Bus and a PCI controller. The system then shows question mark drivers with "!" on them. Properties show the hardware is not installed properly. Also, I can't get my floppy drive to read disks. I get a light on it, so the tape is OK.

Now the old board had no PCI slots or USB ports so I imagine that this is the difference Win 95 detects. But shouldn't that be the job of the new BIOS?

I have two IDE ports set up from the board, the first with the old 340 MB HD and the second with a CD-ROM and newer unformatted (as of yet) 1.6 GB HD as master on that port. The floppy also comes straight from the board.

What the heck is going on? Does something need to be enabled in BIOS? Should my board have some drivers that go with it?

[LJE2]

Sounds like you have a version of Win 95 that does not support USB, only version Win 95C supports USB and even that version has problems with some devices, the Driver for the PCI controller if Win 95 can't find it, it should be on a CD or floppy included with your motherboard, unless you are going to use a USB device, just disable USB in your BIOS, I'm not familliar with your MOBO but most can enable or disable USB in the "BIOS

[DavidX]

Three more points . . .

a) If you didn't get a CD-ROM or floppy with your motherboard, you can get the Bus Master Drivers on the web. Check what chipset you have and download the appropriate drivers from the Intel website.

b)It would probably be better to put both hard drives on the Primary IDE connector.

c) If your Floppy Drive can't read disks but the LED comes on (and stays on constantly?), you have connected the data cable back to front. Reverse it so that pin 1 alligns with the colored stripe on the cable.

[Bazango]

The Amptron site has some drivers for the USB and the PCI controller that I think will solve the problem as per all your suggestions. I'll try putting all the hard drives on the primary.

The floppy drive is driving me nuts. I've tried flipping the cable over and it doesn't work. A new cable now makes it sound like it is trying to read the disk, but I still get "The device is not ready". I wonder if the USB/PCI problem is causing the failure and I can install neither a modem (drivers) or the controller drivers without the floppy drive. The floppy drive is used and new to me, perhaps it is defective. Is there some other way to tell for sure?

Sure. Try it in another computer. I have THREE computers in various states of assembly and I can't seem to get ANY of the floppy drives to work. Ever have one of those life times?

[DavidX]

Hmmm. You don't seem to get on too well with those darned floppies, do you? http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

You are absolutely sure the FDD is set up properly and enabled in the BIOS? And you have actually got a floppy disk in the drive when it says "device is not ready", haven't you?

[BBA]

LJE2, If Windows is detecting the USB, it is Win95 SR2.1 (B) or later.

Bazango, you need to run the USB patch that came in your Windows 95 cd rom. It's under the miscelleaneous or other directory on the cd. Then you need to remove the USB/PCI controller and USB devices from device manager, then reboot. When Windows finds the devices it's likely to ask for USBCD.sys or another file, just select the "Skip This File" option and the USB will load fine.

The meere fact that it even calls the USB by it's name means that the patch was ran at least unsuccessfully once, perhaps while in use on the old motherboard that did not have USB, otherwise it would list it as a "Unknown or Unsupported Device"

If the case is that you have transported the Windows installation from one motherboard to another, I definitely recommend you delete the Windows directory and reload windows from scratch, as nothing but weird problems wil result if you dont.

BBA



[This message has been edited by BBA (edited 06-06-99).]

[Bazango]

Yes, yes and yes. There is a thing called an FDC (floppy drive controller) for this motherboard and it is enabled. The System also shows a driver for both the floppy disk and the floppy drive. Could it be that there is a conflict here that is not being detected by Win 95? Should I try disabling the FDC or removing the driver?

About the other drives...

FAQs for the CD-ROM (www.iomagic.com) suggest that HDs of less than 1GB should not be on the same IDE and so the small HD is alone on the primary.

BBA: Yes! That sounds good, I'll try it.

[This message has been edited by Bazango (edited 06-06-99).]

[Bazango]

BBA: What do I stand to lose by deleting that directory? Will the o-system delete this directory? Maybe there is a reinstallation procedure possible within the setup procedure for Win 95 or something. Do you think this is the source of my floppy problem?

[philipg]

Bazango,
I would just reinstall win95 over the top of itself this should fix it without loosing any favorite application settings.

Win95 setup has an option just something like reinstall corrupt or missing files should do it.

[This message has been edited by philipg (edited 06-09-99).]

[BBA]

Sorry for the delay in responding...
Print this response for reference!

First, I would take these steps to do the install, you will need about 300-400M drive space free before doing this:

1. Copy the Win95 directory from the Windows CD-Rom on to the harddrive, keeping the directory name. This is so you don't need the CD-rom to load windows.

2. Type 'sysedit' in the run line and press enter.

3. Go thru Autoexec.bat and delete all entries... All of them... Period. Go thru Config.sys and delete all lines except add this line: "DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS"

4. Copy the file HIMEM.SYS from the windows or windows\command directory to the C:\ drive root directory.

5. Shut down to a DOS or reboot to a Command prompt. Change directory to the c:\ root directory by typing "CD C:\"

6. Type "REN WINDOWS WINOLD" then press enter.

7. Type "PATH=C:\WINOLD;C:\WINOLD\COMMAND" then press enter.

8. Type "ATTRIB +H +R WINOLD" This will hide the existing windows installation from the windows setup program.

9. Reboot the PC. It will boot to a Dos prompt. From the "C:\" prompt, type "C:\win95\setup" and press enter. This will run the setup for windows installation.

10. After Windows is up and running, you can copy the "c:\winold\application data", "c:\winold\all users" and "c:\winold\desktop" folders back into your new windows directory directory over-writing anything thats there already. This will restore your mail and address book data and your desktop icons.

11. After your up and running and have recovered what you want from the winold directory, delete it from the drive.

Now you will have a clean fresh windows installation and will need to reload any application or program that does not work properly. Most games will still work. Try not to reload anything that you dont have to, to save any extraneous registry data that is not needed.

BBA

[Bazango]

Holy Cow! Hmmm... let's see, who's way should I choose, philipg's or BBA's. What would a Jedi do?

Yes, I'll definitely print this and get back to the board later. Much later. Send the Coast Guard if I'm not back in a week.

[Bazango]

Yeah. Uh huh. What he said. Thanks BBA but it's beyond me to decide on the procedure you suggest.

philipg, I tried your suggestion and the problem remains.

The improperly installed drivers are under "? Other Devices". They are:

? PCI Bridge
? PCI Universal Serial Bus

My big worry right now is:

Is it AT ALL POSSIBLE that these bad drivers are the source of the "device not ready" messages I get whenever I try to read from the floppy drive?

1. The floppy is set up in BIOS.
2. The Floppy Drive Controller (FDC) is set up in BIOS.
3. The tape is installed correctly.
4. The floppy makes reading sounds and the light goes on when a read request is made.

Is it AT ALL POSSIBLE that the drivers are the source of the floppy problems?

One more thing. Is the power supply to these floppies the same source as the HDs? I am using the smaller plug that branches off the HD power plug. Tell me that's not the problem. Please. That is the only plug that fits.

[This message has been edited by Bazango (edited 06-10-99).]

[Susan]

Bazango,
Your PCI/USB and Floppy problems are independent of each other. Check the power plug that you have used (you're using the right one) for the floppy drive and make sure it's not upside-down.

Also, look in Device Mgr/System Devices and see if you have PCI Bus, PCI Standard Host CPU Bridge, and PCI Standard ISA Bridge listed.

[philipg]

I don't beleive I didn't see this sooner....

Check your DMA settings and see if the FDD controller is Sharing one with another device since this will always cause a device not ready on the Floppy.

I ran into this problem when I was installing new hardware and kept changing the DMA settings until all conflicts went away.

One other thing are the icons on your desktop not the way they should look like if yes this is a product of this conflict.

Check all devices under Device Manager and record their settings and change any settings that match. They don't need to show a conflict to be a conflicting.

[philipg]

BBA, THats a great plan but there is one flaw What about the registry if the registry isn't updated correctly the computer will have boot problems and even worse problems than before.

[Bazango]

Susan: I'll check the plug and system devices. Would an upside down plug damage anything?

philipg: I haven't noticed any icon problems, what in particular should I look for? DMA settings are in BIOS?

Also on my list is:

1. Install Win98
2. Try an ISA controller for the floppy.

[philipg]

Your DMA settings for all devices are listed in the Device Manager under the Resources Tab of each Device or you can click properties with the computer Highlighted in Device Manager.

[Susan]

An upside-down plug can damage the floppy drive. I've only seen this done once and it was with an older drive, but the drive was unusable after.

[Bazango]

FLOPPY DRIVE PROBLEM SOLVED.

I don't know what happened but while running through the various permutations of setups, it started working. I am delighted, but completely mystified.

My next Angle of Attack is to install Win98 to see if that solves the unknown device problem.

I don't know if there are any IOMagic CD-ROM users out there, but I tried the patch from the Intel site recommended at the IOMagic FAQ site and it was a total bust. Maybe my PCI problem screwed up their installation wizard.

[Bazango]

DRIVER PROBLEM RESOLVED.

I have tried installing Win98 and all those drivers are replaced properly. Now, if I can only get Win98 going properly...

End of Thread as far as I am concerned.
Thanks to all.