Please Help with Network Adapter

[tallpines]

We have a private home network: mom, dad, and two kids in college.
It is dsl with a netgear wireless router. The computer in question uses Windows 2000, and has the latest service packs and Windows Updates.

We had ghost devices under Network Adapters that you could only see in Safe Mode. My understanding was that they should be removed, and I did so through Regedt32. (I began troubleshooting because we could not access our external hard drive, but would get the message: "F:\ is not accessible. Incorrect function." I also saw that another device would not work because "this device cannot find enough free resources that it can use.")

But when I removed the Wan Miniports (3 variations of them), ALL the network adapters disappeared from Device Manager, including one called "Direct Parallel" which was also a ghost device, but I hadn't done anything with that one yet. And so did my "Realtek RTL8139(A)-based PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter" - which is the good one - that also shows up in regular mode normally.

So I rebooted into regular mode, and the Device Manager category "Network Adapters" is completely missing now, but as I scrolled to the bottom, there was a new category - "Unknown" which lists all the previous network adapters that previously only showed up in Safe Mode - and here they all are with yellow exclamation marks under "Unknown" - in regular mode: Direct Parallel, Realtek, and three WAN Miniports.

I clicked on Realtek and Update Driver, which it did, and then rebooted as required for the hardware change. But it still shows up under "Unknown" and with a yellow exclamation mark, though now the manufacturer and location fields are filled, but the error message is "This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device." (Code 31)

Error Code 31 says "this device depends on another device that is not functioning correctly."

I am wondering what that other device is? Does it actually need one of those ghost devices?

So I cannot get online with that computer but am using a laptop at the moment to try to figure this out.

I would greatly appreciate any help you can give me on the network adapter, and maybe also on access to the external drive (which works fine when we tried it with another computer).

Thank you!

[Archangel122184]

First of all, there is a reason that these devices are "ghosts". If you really wanted to see them, you can use the "show hidden devices" option in the device manager instead of playing in the dangerous bowels of the registry.

The simple to your answers is yes, you deleted something you need. The windows device interfaced is a layered approach (as is with most of today's operating systems). To allow for the most compatibility, some of these layers are standardized interfaces for applications so that programs don't have to know hardware specific interfaces. The miniports are the interfaces (or layers) to this interface. Removing them simply removes a necesary component to device operation.

[tallpines]

Thanks for your reply.

I do feel pretty stupid about this. I began troubleshooting because of the external hard drive and CD-Rom drive access problems, and found one site that said that ghost devices under Network Adapters (that you could only see in Safe Mode) should be removed through Regedt32. I followed those instructions and could kick myself for that now.

What steps should I take to fix this?

Thanks for your help!

[Archangel122184]

The mini ports are usually installed durring the device creation. In the unknown devices, completely remove the network adaptors and while you are add it remove the mini ports again (since they have no drivers). Reboot your computer and hopefully when the system installs the network adaptor again it will reinstall the appropriate mini port... if it doesn't, this micrsoft arcticle might help.

[tallpines]

OK, I did completely remove them from unknown devices; after rebooting, I still was not connected to our DSL and went to device mgr. - realtek now shows up with the yellow alert - still under Unknown - with the Network Adapters category still missing. The error message is "This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device." (Code 31) The WAN miniports don't show up at all. Then I checked safe mode, and it is the same situation there.

The Microsoft article refers to Windows XP and later versions, and we are using Windows 2000, so I'm wondering what we should try next?

Thanks for your help!

[Archangel122184]

Unfortunately I haven't had to deal with the WAN Miniports much. Most people leave those alone. I think the best advice I can offer you is to follow the XP instructions on you 2k machine. The setups should be pretty close and the driver names should be the same

[z1p]

Hi tallpines,

I spoke with some of the mods here to see if they any ideas on how to solve your problems. Regretably the only idea we came up with was a repair install of W2K on the machine. This is not in my area so I can't help you with it, but someone gave me this link which may help you. If you want to go this way and want help with it, I recommend opening a new thread in thw W2k forum. Someone there should be able to help.

[Murf]

Before doing the re-install try physically taking out the NIC (network card), and reseating, (if available a different PCI slot). Boot and W2K hardwrae wizzard should come up.