98 to 2K Incompatible Hard Disk Controller

[Sylvia]

I'm doing an upgrade from Win 98 to Win 2K. The Upgrade
Report listed several programs with locations and names
that were incompatible and I've removed them. It also
tells me several hard ware devices - printers, scanners,
etc that I need new drivers for and I have those. But....
I get this item in the report "Incompatible hard Disk
Controller" which then proceeds to tell me that setup does
not have a driver for the hard disk controller on the
system and if I continue without a Win 2K version - 95 or
98 will not do, setup might fail.

The controller is an Intel 82371AB/EB PCI BUS master IDE
Controller which is on the compatibility list. I've been
to the Dell site and they do not show any updated drivers
for this, not does the Intel site. Frankly I'm not sure
if I'm even looking for the right driver but this is the
only *controller* driver in my hardware list. Is this
message an anomaly and everything will work fine (hah!) or
where might I search for this driver??? Someone suggested
I do a clean install and this problem won't happen but, as
everyone else doing an upgrade, the process of
reinstalling all the apps will be a pain in this instance.

Thanks for any ideas anyone may have.

Sylvia

 

[Dan Seur]

As you probably know, upgrades are an attractive but very "iffy"
proposition. Lots of people spend more time recovering than they
would've spent reinstalling apps after a clean install.

You could expect to get an "incompatible controller driver" from an
analysis of a W9x system. ALL W9x drivers are incompatible with W2k.

Try the upgrade. It might work fine, assuming the W9x has no serious
corruption. If it works, you win. If it doesn't, call Dell. Or check the
Intel site for a W2k controller driver.

You might also run, from the W2k CD, on your current system:
[CD:]\i386\winnt32.exe /checkupgradeonly
which will give you a nice report on potential probs but won't start an
install. (I'm not sure from your post you did this.)

 

[Scott Ray [gob-gook]]

Sylvia -

I went through this exact problem (look for post from last week). We were
trying to upgrade a Compaq with the same controller you have. In my case,
the upgrade failed - but not because of that. We had a bum processor that
would run happily out of DOS but caused hangs under windows. I say go ahead
and try the upgrade. Chances are it will work. Also check out
www.driverguide.com - they have a driver listed for that IDE Bus (that I
couldn't find ANYWHERE on intel's site), but you have to dig a little to
find it.