Modem not available when turned off while booting.

  • Thread starter Thread starter JN
  • Start date Start date
J

JN

I have this problem in windows 2000, in windows 98 all was ok: I have
a modem (Microcom, a few years old, but working ok) connected via
serial port. If I start my PC without modem turned on, I am not able
to connect. Windows show modem as not available, even if it is turned
on after windows are running. I must either restart my PC with modem
turned on or detect new hardware. Only after that, the modem can be
used. Any suggestions what might be wrong ? Thanks.
 
JN wrote in
I have this problem in windows 2000, in windows 98 all was ok: I have
a modem (Microcom, a few years old, but working ok) connected via
serial port. If I start my PC without modem turned on, I am not able
to connect. Windows show modem as not available, even if it is turned
on after windows are running. I must either restart my PC with modem
turned on or detect new hardware. Only after that, the modem can be
used. Any suggestions what might be wrong ? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Nothing "wrong". Just works that way in some cases.
It may be dependent on a BIOS setting. See if the BIOS is set for PnP
Op. Sys. Better not to have that with Win2K. But you may never find a
way to get around it.
 
JN said:
I have this problem in windows 2000, in windows 98 all was ok: I have
a modem (Microcom, a few years old, but working ok) connected via
serial port. If I start my PC without modem turned on, I am not able
to connect. Windows show modem as not available, even if it is turned
on after windows are running. I must either restart my PC with modem
turned on or detect new hardware. Only after that, the modem can be
used. Any suggestions what might be wrong ? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Windows will have LOTS of drivers and INF files defined for devices that
do not currently exist. For example, I can find drivers for 3COM
network cards although I don't have any installed and never did.
Windows won't load up every driver that has ever been installed. It
will do a hardware check and load the drivers for the devices that it
detects (first by NTDETECT.COM and then later by the kernel
communicating with device drivers). If the device is powered down (or
disconnected), well, then it doesn't exist during that instance of the
OS.

See http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315396 on
how to use the bootup log (%systemroot%\ntbtlog.txt) to see what got
loaded during the bootup process. Apparently this logfile only gets
written when you start in Safe mode, so you would have to boot into Safe
mode with the modem off and boot again into Safe mode with the modem on.
According to http://windows.about.com/library/weekly/aa041600a.htm, the
next boot into Safe mode will append to this logfile, so delete it
before rebooting into Safe mode. Or you could use the /bootlog switch
in boot.ini (see
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;239780).

That's great for testing in Safe mode but you probably want to also
check what gets loaded in normal mode. Hit F8 during the bootup to get
the advanced boot options menu
(http://www.jsifaq.com/sube/tip2000/rh2038.htm). Then select Enable
Boot Logging and boot into normal mode. Again, you should probably
delete the ntbtlog.txt file before doing this so you don't have to
figure out what part goes with which boot.
 
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