Windows 98 Unknown Hardware Warning

New installation or old system that just started doing this? New hardware added?

you keep posting this but i never hear that you've tried anything we have suggested.
you can't get rid of the error message until you get rid of the error.
do you know how to get into device manager. do you have any yellow bangs or exclamation marks in device manager. if you do, and you delete them and pick refresh you will see your error appear. watch very closely and you may get a clue about what device it thinks it found. otherwise you have to figure it out from 20 questions like, did it used to work and what has changed...

After you complete the boot process, open device manager.

Right click on My Computer and select properties.

Click on the Device Manager tab.

Select the option to view devices by connection.

Find the Yellow "?" or "!" mark that identifies the hardware problem.

Now, copy the information as to how the device connects to the system and post it back here as a comment.

Reject our answers so that we know you have posted the new information.

Then, we can start directing you to the device that needs an updated driver.

Other things to check:

Does your sound card work properly?

What about your USB ports?

DVD-ROM drive?

External storage device such as a flash memory reader?

These are "common" devices that Windows 98 cannot find and install the driver for on it's own.

Chas

First of all account for all devices that you know are in the the system and working then exclude those. Is anything missing tht you know is installed? A modem would usually say unknown communications device but for some of them until a port is loaded for it the modem will not be known. The wave device for the modem may not be recognized at all. If you have the drivers for the modem uninstall and reinstall. Part of the sound driver may not be loaded. This could be part of the mother board resources like for power saving. Is there onboard resources that you have installed a card for. If you have onboard sound and a have installed a slot soundcard one or the other may be the problem.

I think I'll take the advice of "TECH" and go ahead with disabling hardware that Windows 98 SE detects as "Unknown." Thanks for your advice, Tech ...

I've planned to eliminate this problem by simply disabling the unknown hardware device (the ?? marks in device manager) and let it go at that. Every device, modem, sound, printer, monitor, etc. works in this PC. So, whatever Windows 98SE is looking for and the unknown hardware warnings will be eliminated. Thanks for your input and support.

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