Com2 Installed But Dead =(

[Guest_imported]

Wondering if anyone can shed some light on a problem I just ran into. I'm running Win98 SE and recently re-installed Windows over the top of the existing installation. For some reason Windows detects Com2 in System, but no programs can use it. I've removed/installed Com2 several times, but I still cannot access it.

It's activated in the BIOS, and no matter what I set it to, despite having no conflicts with the port, it just refuses to accept that Com2 exists.

SiSoft Sandra 2001 also refuses to detect the port. I have no idea what to do next, everything was working fine with Com2 until the re-install.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jakrabit]

when you power on the system, right after the BIOS post (and before the win98 splash screen), hold down the shift key... keep holding it down until the splash screen appears for 4 seconds... when your computer boots, it will boot into safe mode... you will see a dialog box telling you that...

once at the desktop, right-click on the desktop, and choose properties... go to the Device Manager, and i bet you will see LOTS of duplicate devices...

delete everything under Ports... also check to make sure you don't have multiple video devices... if so, delete them... then shutdown, and power up the computer and boot to normal mode (don't hold any keys down)...

it should re-detect all the origional devices again... this time, there will be only one instance of each device in the registry...

if this doesn't work, my only other recommendation would be to format and reload... but i am sure there are many other suggestions here too...

 

[Guest_imported]

I thought about doing both the Safe mode and format/install. Problem with fdisking and starting again is I have no way to fully back everything up, I have lots of stuff I can't afford to lose right now, and it's all over the place =(
Also if I boot into safe mode at all, I have to reinstall my GFX card drivers, my Voodoo3 AGP doesn't like working again after safe mode.

If there is a simpler way around it, that'd be fantastic, if not I guess I'll have to do one of the above. Thanks for that advice =)

 

[Guest_imported]

Update: I booted to Safe Mode, and uninstalled all com ports. When I re-booted Win98 recognised and installed all com ports including Com2. Again there are no conflicts on any of the com ports. Com2 still refuses to work and Sandra doesn't recognise Com2 either. I have no idea what to do now, as I've tried pretty much everything. I only used one program with Com2 and that's MS ActiveSync. I really need this to transfer stuff to my mobile device.

Any more ideas would be brilliant.

Thanks,
blokie

 

[tedsmith]

Have you checked that both ports are enabled in the CMOS setup or you might have a conflict with a MSB port.
-or- If you see in the control panel/device manager that the ports are all installed with no interrupt or address conflicts, then maybe you have a blown output transister in the comm port.
-or- Some ports have to have their own special driver and dont work with the normal Win98 provided hardware.
-or- You can buy a 2 port card for about $25 and install it as the comms 1 and 2 after uninstalling your normal ports. You might have to remove the original ports in the CMOS setup. I use a card to give me 4 ports without any problems.

 

[Guest_imported]

I doubt the port is broken, since it was working correctly up until the point the Windows reinstall finished.

The port is enabled in BIOS, and it does the same thing regardless of what I set the interupts to.

The port was working with standard windows drivers when win98 was instaleld as new.

That's the confusion, since nothing has changed apart from the fact I installed on top of a previous working installation of win98 and the port is recognised by system, just by nothing else. I've installed/removed every way I can think of, and Windows detects and installs it every single time without problem. I just can't use the thing =(