Unknown Device message appears

[glenrose]

hi:

Win98SE

Reformatted and installed Win98SE, all of my hardware has been installed, no yellow stickies in device manager, however keep getting a message upon startup

New hardware found: Unknown device

No drivers from Win98SE work on it, how do I know what to install if there is no indication of what the hardware is.

Also tried to have Windows detect any new hardware. None.

thanks

[WhatsThisBoxFor?]

You could try unplugging one device and then seeing if the message comes up, if it does you could plug it back in and try a different one (with reboots inbetween of course). If it is a device causing this then this will find the problem.

[Markoman01027]

Do you have your Chipset drivers installed? Those can be found on your motherboard's driver's disk.

Remove any PCI card you may have from Device Manager. Power down the computer. Remove all PCI cards. Install one. Boot up. Instal drivers. Repeat until you have installed all of the PCI cards that you may need.

[WHB]

I had the same problem, as did many others who's had 98SE, If you don't have the software for the unknown device you're going to have a hard time with that unless you can identify the device, which is part of the problem, it's not sure what the device it is. what I did is to just to follow through with the wizards instructions, then you will not get the message again, but you still will have the yellow question mark in the device manager. to answer that, I would say is to not let the yellow question mark bother you. that's why I just built my own computer, see my signiture. Now I'm a happy camper. because as you know 98 is on the way out. or out all ready. but I know how it is, if that's all you have. been there before.
P.S. Keep us posted after you remove and reinstall everything, want to know the results.

[glenrose]

Thanks everyone:

All of the devices are on board and I did remove them from the device manager. Reinstalled the drivers and still the message appears.

It is now a yellow sticky in my device manager but all else seems fine.

thanks

[morriswindgate]

Got any USB Devices connected to the computer, 98 was anything but plug and play when it came to these devices.

[andyms18a]

try this http://www.zhangduo.com/udi.html

[GaryRouth]

Hi all

andy - clever program link! I hadn't seen that one before, so I bookmarked your link & plan to try it out some time next week (this week, little folk are graduating from kindergarten and gradeschool)

glenrose - [this is in the "wild guess" department] -- I've seen the "Unknown Device" show up when the IR (Infra-Red) onboard is enabled. If yours is enabled, but you don't plan to use it, you can disable it in the Bios & Windows won't detect it and prompt for drivers anymore. The other "Unknown Devices" I've come across are usually sound devices (for either sound cards or modems) and (like Morris mentions) USB devices.

. . . Gary