Device Manager

If you're running Windows 95, 98, or ME, your first stop after the computer finishes the startup process should be the Device Manager, a piece of operating system software that helps you manage the various pieces of your PC. You can get to the Device Manager in several different ways: the two easiest are right-clicking on the My Computer icon on your desktop and selecting Properties from the context menu that pops up when you do this, or by going to the Start menu, going up to Settings, selecting Control Panel from the list of choices and then double-clicking on the System control panel. Either way, you’ll be presented with a tabbed dialog box; click on the tab that says Device Manager, and you’re there.

The first thing to look for is a yellow exclamation point or red international no sign (you know, the circle with the slash through it) next to one of your devices. You may need to click on all the little plus signs next to each category of devices to see the full outline-like list of everything in your computer. If you see the yellow or red symbol, you know something is amiss. My first suggestion is to highlight the offending device and click on the Remove button. What this does is essentially erase the driver software associated with the device as well as references to it within the Windows 95/98/ME Registry. (The Registry tracks all the hardware and software you install, the preferences you set for each, as well as lots of other stuff). The fancy term for this is "logically" removing the device because, even though it may still be physically attached, the computer no longer has any record of its presence.

Next, you should restart your computer, let Windows' Plug-and-Play feature "find" the device again, and redo the driver installation process by either using the driver suggestions that Windows finds and makes or clicking on the Have Disk button and using the installer disks that came with the device. (If both options are possible, I’d go with the disks that came with the hardware—unless you’re sure they are an older version.) If the computer doesn’t find the device, then I would suspect the connections or the device itself. Buy another cable, unplug and re-plug the connectors, remove and then physically reinstall any new plug-in cards or do whatever you have to to ensure that the connection is solid. Once you’ve done that, you’ll find that many times, simply reinstalling the drivers solves the problem.