Adding a disk in Win2k Pro

xct

I added a new disk to a Win 2000 pro system and upon reboot I cancelled the 'add new device' dialog without adding a driver. Subsequently adding the driver in the hardware device list did not work. Now whenever I reboot the machine it automatically detects the drive (found new device STxxx etc.) and attempts to install the driver.
The dialog presented is an 'install unsigned drvier for device Disk Drive' type one. If you accept this, windows bluescreens and reboots. Adding the device from the hardware list under system properties shows that it is getting the driver from an inf in c:\winnt (I can't remember off-hand which one).
The strange thing is, the device is present in the list and it says that no device is required and is working normally. It's just a nuisance to have to cancel the new device found dialog every time I reboot.
Is there some way of preventing this from happening?

WhiteWashMan

what sort of new disk?
a disk drive?
a floppy disk?
a cd rom drive?

a hard drive shouldnt be 'detected' like ordinary hardware, at least ive never seen it. it will just appear under your disk manager

what sort of disk and how is it connected?
ie. slave, master, primary, secondary, new controller, that sort of thing.

sceptre

Go to c:\winnt\inf\

The file you're looking for is called oem(a number).inf. There will be a matching file with the same name and a .pnf extension.

Here's the tricky part. Any time you've installed a driver with a disk that wasn't your original windows disk, it will have added a file to the inf folder called oem(number).inf - it just increments the number each time. You'll have to open the inf file in notepad (just double click it, they open in notepad by default) and figure out which one it is. It's probably the one with the highest number, but don't count on it. Delete it and the corresponding .pnf file.

xct

Originally posted by WhiteWashMan
what sort of new disk?
a disk drive?
a floppy disk?
a cd rom drive?

a hard drive shouldnt be 'detected' like ordinary hardware, at least ive never seen it. it will just appear under your disk manager

That's what I thought too, but Windows seems to think differently!

what sort of disk and how is it connected?
ie. slave, master, primary, secondary, new controller, that sort of thing.

It's a new EIDE hard disk, as a secondary master (no slave). The existing hard disks are on SCSI, a DVD drive as primary master, again no slave.

I'll give the .inf suggestions by sceptre a go and see how it works out.

Thanks.

WhiteWashMan

hmmm, interesting.

ok, first off, does the cd come up in the bios as primary master and does the hard drive come up as secondry master?

all i have ever done is go into disk admin and format or partition new drives. its all i have ever had to do.
and ive got an ide controller card, 3 hard rives, a dvd, a cdr and a zip drive running

anyway, make sure that these are bsing picked up in bios (i assume they are).
i have never worked with scsi hard drives before so i dont know anything about how they work with regard to having your active partition and OS on them and how they react with ide.

if anyone would like to tell id be happy to read

by the way, when i tries to ad a new driver, what device is it trying to add?
is it a controller or is it an actual hard drive?
ive not heard of device drivers for hard drives. only for controllers
what type of hard drive is it?

xct

I tried looking in c:\winnt\inf but couldn't find any .inf files beginning with oem?

ok, first off, does the cd come up in the bios as primary master and does the
hard drive come up as secondry master?

Yes, on both counts.

The SCSI drives are operating normally and also serve as the boot device. It was only when I introduced the IDE disk that the problems started.

The driver it is trying to add is one for "Disk Drive" Windows says. It also reports the driver it found as being unsigned which I also find strange.

It's a new 20GB Seagate, I don't have the serial number to hand.

Apart from that it works without any trouble.

WhiteWashMan

so you can actually format and use the drive?

if you dont cancel the hardware setup, and then go into device manager, what device does it give you as not installed properly.
i still dont think its the hard drive itself. im more inclined to think its the controllor.
but hey, everytime i say something sensible, computers gang up on me and prove me completely wrong.

fixing computers is like working ons mall rectangular plastic women.
except it pays better.....

xct

Yes, the drive works normally in every other way (once you cancel the driver install).

The Hardware manager shows the disk as being installed normally at all times.

It seems almost like there is a cached setting that it needs to install a device driver on startup but it never was cleared somehow?

WhiteWashMan

so you have no unknown devices in device manager?
for something like that with all other hardwares, id usually just uninstall and reinstall.
suppose if you want to risk it.

xct

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling! I've disaled IDE in the BIOS to see if that would clear it. It went away while it was disabled but came back again as soon as I switch it on!

About the only thing I haven't tried yet is to reinstall windows altogher, which I'd rather not have to do!