New hardware wizard in Win 2k

[deraeler]

New HW wiz runs on startup (twice) locating "unknown device".
I've been through Microsoft's kb article on this, and the only evidence as to cause I can locate is entry in bootlog.txt listing a cryptic PID.

The only thing that seems to make this go away is disabling the Plug & Play service, which obviously is not a perm solution.

I believe this problem started when my g'friend installed an OLD Casio digital cam USB driver a year ago.....probably a Win989 or older driver.  I was able to uninstall it, but ever since this problem has been occurring.  No other apparent side effects, just incredibly annoying.

Tried disabling things in MSCONFIG - only thing that worked was disabling the PnP service.  I've removed every piece of hw in the system without any effect.

It has to be an old vxd (Search yields nothing though) or a software device.  How can I get rid of it?  Any way to identify what's causing the HW wiz on startup and disable it?

btw - can I get a help file for MSCONFIG?  I'm interested in learning about some of the more technical options in there.

thanks -

[ceez]

you could probably try reinstalling the software and then uninstalling it again.  Maybe this time it will take everything out.

The other option is to go to the device manager and dissable the usb device.  If it's starting the hw wizard it should still be listed there with the "?".

there is no msconfig in win2k, the only way that i access anything related to bootup is via the registry

hklm/software/microsoft/windows/current version/run

all those registry entries are your startup items.  Make sure you export the run folder in case you mess up and need to import an entry again.

hope that helped

[deraeler]

Thanks -


Yah you're right about those being startup entries in the registry - but I use msconfig to manipulate them (btw - MSCONFIG is available for Win2k and XP on the web - do a search for it or I'll send you a copy).  I've also suspected a Win98 driver may have caused this (see notes below on old USB Digital Camera that was attempted/installed).  Anyway, MSCONFIG was really useful in allowing me to eliminate much old Win98 stuff (SYSTEM.ini, WIN.ini settings  etc) as the root of the problem.

Thanks for your comments - but this is a tough one because the only trail left is a cryptic tag entry in \winnt\msbtlog.txt  from when the failed device install occrred during boot.  That long hex code (PID?) is the only hope of matching up the culprit with whatever software it needs.  I've even done web searches for it, obviously no luck.

don't wanna sound snooty, but I"ll give a few more details in hopes of getting something tangible - I've spent a lot of time on this - to the tune of uninstalling and reinstalling, in various orders, all the components in my system.

I strongly suspect this is a software driver snafu with ATI - its related to their Capture driver and the actual Radeon display driver.  I've ordered their installation exactly as described in their README file (Capture, THEN Display) - but they warn against this EXACT condition if you instll these in the incorrect order.  So (I doubt it), but maybe I did install them in the incorrect order years ago, but I've long since uninstalled/reinstalled everything hundreds of times since. This should be something that can be remedied.
 
So that's how I *know* this is being caused by their (specifically these two)drivers.  Why else would they warn against this exact condition iccuring?

fyi - I've followed ATI's All-In-Wonder Radeon tech notes to the letter, and also those I found at:
http://drivers.driverheaven.net/misc.php?p...?page=uninstall
and
http://drivers.driverheaven.net/misc.php?p...page=uninstall2

(note to the editor - fyi I didn't find anything similar here, but would have used it if I had  http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />

I've also gone through Microsoft's technote on this condition (Unknown Devices found at boot) - there's nothing in Computer Management that indicates a problem device or process etc. etc.

These seem to be software devices.  But it wants a driver for them that doesn't exist - they're apparently created/installed as some sort of interaction between the TV-Capture driver and the Display driver. I've installed anything they could be asking for.  You can only abort the Wizard - and then they become two "unknown devices" in DM.   They don't provide anything tangible in Device Manager - disabling them only causes them to be re-detected again at boot.

- tried the USB thing....disabled USB altogether - even turned it off in the BIOS.  Nothing helped.  Interesting point though that this all started around the time that old Digital Camera software was installed.  This is why I think the only other possobility here is that these "software devices" were Win98 driver components installed by this old Dig. Camera software.  I've done searches for old vxd's though and deleted everything even remotely suspicious.

Anyway, tangent.

Does anybody know where in the Registry such software devices might be residing?  I've used RegCleanr, RegClean, Norton SystemWorks, and my own limited Regedit tweaking to eliminate this - unsuccessfully.

It also could be the existence of certain files, but these procedures I've listed above have listed many files - all of which I've located,  dumped (and perhaps reinstalled).

btw - ATI won't help because my card is too old (5 years?).  So spread the good news about ATI ok?  Here's a special toast to them.  http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ph34r.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':ph34r:\' />

Thi is killing my folks - all your collective ingenuity has to come up with something...please it's driving me mad........ http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':lol:\' />

thanks,
deraeler

[deraeler]

..oops - I meant it's killing ME folks, not my parents...http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />
 - deraeler

[deraeler]

I guess I drove everyone away with my details.
I guess I saw it as necessary, but the crux of it is still rather simple.

Has anyone been able to get rid of "Unknown Devices" found at startup?

There has to be someone out there who's gone through this....

tia -

[DJ]

I don't have an answer, only the same problem on a machine running XP.  It started a couple of weeks ago & I havn't installed anything new in that time.

Device manager now shows about 50 unknown devices listed!!

I came across this message board whilst trying to search for a solution - If I come across one I will post here.

Good Luck

DJ

[RugRat]

Hi,

I wonder if you are still watching this thread, and if you are still experiencing this annoyance.  Anyway, here's my $0.02 in the hope that it might help.

I didn't understand whether you actually get the famous yellow "?" in Device Manager, but I recently stumbled across a freeware program that claims to be able to identify those ?'s.

It's called "Unknown Device Identifier" and I found it at < http://www.zhangduo.com/udi.html >.

NOTE :  This is NOT my software, I have NOT tested it, I have NOT virus-checked it  (... standard disclaimer ...)  so please treat it with all the same caution as you would if you had stumbled across it yourself.

--
RugRat.