wagner0
asked on
Re-installing RAS for dial out on NT Workstation 4.0 fails
I have a serious problem with my Gateway portable NT
machine (Solo 9100XL) after trying to set it up to use for dial out purposes. It has Service Level 3 installed.
I first configured the dial out connection to cole's (our Solaris 2.6 Unix Sparc 5 machine) PPP modem connection. After having done so, or during this process, I had the Remote Access Server (RAS) process die and I had to reboot. When I rebooted, NT said it found new hardware and wanted to search for it and install the appropriate drivers. Since
NT wasn't telling me what it found, etc. I was suspicious at first and didn't let it continue. However, RAS still would not function, so after another reboot, I let NT search for and install the drivers it thought it needed (it found my PCMCIA modem on COM3 again and defaulted to the generic "Standard modem" drivers. Since I didn't have my driver
disk with me from Gateway at the time, I let it install the generic drivers.
After doing so, everything seemed to work ok. I was able to get a PPP connection to cole, etc. Since things were working, I decided to see about getting a script setup so that I didn't need to open up a terminal window and manually login to the PPP account. As I was looking at some of the sample scripts provided on the system, I remembered that I was using the generic modem driver. Since I had things working and was now trying to "tune" things up, I decided that I would remove the generic driver and install the driver specific for the modem that Gateway had supplied on a floppy disk. So, I did this. However, after that,
I no longer was able to get the RAS services to start upon bootup any longer. The event viewer mentioned RAS error number 615 in the log file. After some searching on the WEB, I found that this error means "The port was not found". Not being able to get around this problem, I decided to uninstall RAS itself (in "Network" under "services" tab)
and re-install it. After uninstalling RAS, the service startup error messages disappeared, as expected.
Now, I could re-install the modem and driver, but would always get the driver name, "Gateway 2000 XJEM3336 Telepath (Modem)", but with a #2 appended like this: "Gateway 2000 XJEM3336 Telepath (Modem) #2". Also, since I wanted to configure for dialup out, it needed to re-install RAS,
which it would do, but it could never see the modem previously installed. It would alway ask if I wanted to install a modem, regardless whether I had the modem and driver installed or not. Under all circumstances, the
RAS installation would never see the installed modem and fail to complete the installation.
So, I am currently stuck at this point in trying to get RAS re-installed and working so that I can use the machine for dial out purposes.
One thing that is strange is that the original modem driver, the one without the #2 on it, is still visible via the "Phone Dialer" program (under Programs/Accessories in the Start Menu). However, the line properties for the modem are inaccessible (not the case for the one with the #2 on it). Anyway, this application apparently "sees" the original driver entry, or what is left of it, but I cannot "see" it
under Control Panel via the "Modems" or "Telephony" programs where I would have the option to remove it.
So, I think I have a problem due to a previous modem driver not being completely uninstalled in some manner and it is keeping the RAS installation from seeing any newly installed modem drivers as well as the original one. Thus, the re-installation of RAS is failing and I can't seem to find a way around the problem.
I have seen this problem before on a desktop NT machine (which also happens to be a Gateway, but I don't think that is relevant here). In that case, we were installing Symantec's WinFax Pro package and RAS lost access to
the modem entries as well. In that case, we finally punted and completely re-installed NT as the machine was not yet in service. That is not an viable option in this situation. I have done a lot of looking around last night on the WEB (even sending a message describing the problem to a newsgroup), but didn't find anything that directly related to this.
I have run out of things to try at this point, so any suggestions would really be appreciated. I really need to have this working as soon as possible.
machine (Solo 9100XL) after trying to set it up to use for dial out purposes. It has Service Level 3 installed.
I first configured the dial out connection to cole's (our Solaris 2.6 Unix Sparc 5 machine) PPP modem connection. After having done so, or during this process, I had the Remote Access Server (RAS) process die and I had to reboot. When I rebooted, NT said it found new hardware and wanted to search for it and install the appropriate drivers. Since
NT wasn't telling me what it found, etc. I was suspicious at first and didn't let it continue. However, RAS still would not function, so after another reboot, I let NT search for and install the drivers it thought it needed (it found my PCMCIA modem on COM3 again and defaulted to the generic "Standard modem" drivers. Since I didn't have my driver
disk with me from Gateway at the time, I let it install the generic drivers.
After doing so, everything seemed to work ok. I was able to get a PPP connection to cole, etc. Since things were working, I decided to see about getting a script setup so that I didn't need to open up a terminal window and manually login to the PPP account. As I was looking at some of the sample scripts provided on the system, I remembered that I was using the generic modem driver. Since I had things working and was now trying to "tune" things up, I decided that I would remove the generic driver and install the driver specific for the modem that Gateway had supplied on a floppy disk. So, I did this. However, after that,
I no longer was able to get the RAS services to start upon bootup any longer. The event viewer mentioned RAS error number 615 in the log file. After some searching on the WEB, I found that this error means "The port was not found". Not being able to get around this problem, I decided to uninstall RAS itself (in "Network" under "services" tab)
and re-install it. After uninstalling RAS, the service startup error messages disappeared, as expected.
Now, I could re-install the modem and driver, but would always get the driver name, "Gateway 2000 XJEM3336 Telepath (Modem)", but with a #2 appended like this: "Gateway 2000 XJEM3336 Telepath (Modem) #2". Also, since I wanted to configure for dialup out, it needed to re-install RAS,
which it would do, but it could never see the modem previously installed. It would alway ask if I wanted to install a modem, regardless whether I had the modem and driver installed or not. Under all circumstances, the
RAS installation would never see the installed modem and fail to complete the installation.
So, I am currently stuck at this point in trying to get RAS re-installed and working so that I can use the machine for dial out purposes.
One thing that is strange is that the original modem driver, the one without the #2 on it, is still visible via the "Phone Dialer" program (under Programs/Accessories in the Start Menu). However, the line properties for the modem are inaccessible (not the case for the one with the #2 on it). Anyway, this application apparently "sees" the original driver entry, or what is left of it, but I cannot "see" it
under Control Panel via the "Modems" or "Telephony" programs where I would have the option to remove it.
So, I think I have a problem due to a previous modem driver not being completely uninstalled in some manner and it is keeping the RAS installation from seeing any newly installed modem drivers as well as the original one. Thus, the re-installation of RAS is failing and I can't seem to find a way around the problem.
I have seen this problem before on a desktop NT machine (which also happens to be a Gateway, but I don't think that is relevant here). In that case, we were installing Symantec's WinFax Pro package and RAS lost access to
the modem entries as well. In that case, we finally punted and completely re-installed NT as the machine was not yet in service. That is not an viable option in this situation. I have done a lot of looking around last night on the WEB (even sending a message describing the problem to a newsgroup), but didn't find anything that directly related to this.
I have run out of things to try at this point, so any suggestions would really be appreciated. I really need to have this working as soon as possible.
1- Uninstall Ras Service.
2- Uinstall all modem drivers, Reboot and choose no if NT asks you that it detects your modem and is about to install a driver for it.
3- Open Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe) and delete the follwoing RAS entries in Hkey_Local_Machine:
Hkey_Local_Machine\softwar
Hkey_Local_Machine\softwar
and
Hkey_Local_Machine\System\
4- Reinstall Your modem driver
5- Reinstall RAS Service
2- Uinstall all modem drivers, Reboot and choose no if NT asks you that it detects your modem and is about to install a driver for it.
3- Open Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe) and delete the follwoing RAS entries in Hkey_Local_Machine:
Hkey_Local_Machine\softwar
Hkey_Local_Machine\softwar
and
Hkey_Local_Machine\System\
4- Reinstall Your modem driver
5- Reinstall RAS Service
ASKER
Hmm, gasim's answer still doesn't solve the problem because I cannot complete the RAS installation as detailed below. I think
some additional information is necessary as I may not have
stated things quite clearly in the original message.
I followed gasim's steps, but
1) the RAS Service has been uninstalled (does not show up in the
"services" tab under Control Panel/Networking) and I have been unable to reinstall it completely since the initial uninstall. It will proceed with the RAS installation up through copying the files from the CD, etc. until it displays the RAS screen to "add"
a RAS port (since it sees no modems/ports in the window). Selecting "add" causes the RAS screen to popup up a screen asking if it should install a modem (this occurs whether the modem has been installed prior to the RAS installation attempt or not) since no ports/modems are available for "adding".
Even if I go through the steps to "add" a modem, the newly installed modem does not display in the RAS screen and the
above scenario is again repeated. If I cancel out of the RAS
installation screen, it says that no settings will be saved
since no port/modem has been "added". Cancelling does indeed
not allow RAS to completely install as it never shows up in the Control Panel/Network services tab. Thus, I cannot get RAS to
completely reinstall onto the system.
2) None of the gasim's listed RAS entries exist in the Registry.
This seems to make sense since I cannot seem to get RAS to completely install and updating the Registry is likely one of
the last steps of the RAS installation process.
3) I have never gotten the machine to "recognize new hardware"
again except for the time mentioned in the original message. Removing all the modem entries via "Control Panel/Modems" and rebooting doesn't make any difference. It never has any trouble "adding" the modem (via Control Panel/Modems) if I have removed the modem drivers previously. However, the RAS installation never sees the modem drivers I have added in this manner. Note that the system does find the modem on Com3 correctly when it does its hardware search for modems.
4) Even if all modem drivers have been removed via "Control Panel/Modems" and the machine rebooted, I can still "see" the original modem driver entry in the "Start Menu/Applications/Phone Dialer program" via the "tools/connect using" menu dialog. However, I cannot access the "line properties" dialog box if the "original" modem driver is selected nor does this program provide a means of removing the driver. Any additional modem drivers that I may have installed later will show up here also and the "line properties" dialog box is accessible if one of them is selected.
Note that this "original" modem driver never does display in the "Control Panel/Modems" program. If it did, I could remove the driver from there.
Thus, the reason I suspect that the original modem driver has not completely uninstalled for some reason and/or the RAS installation does not point to the same list (or starting point of the list) of modem drivers that the "Control Panel/Modems" program does and/or that list of modem drivers has somehow been corrupted due to the partial uninstall of the "original" modem driver.
some additional information is necessary as I may not have
stated things quite clearly in the original message.
I followed gasim's steps, but
1) the RAS Service has been uninstalled (does not show up in the
"services" tab under Control Panel/Networking) and I have been unable to reinstall it completely since the initial uninstall. It will proceed with the RAS installation up through copying the files from the CD, etc. until it displays the RAS screen to "add"
a RAS port (since it sees no modems/ports in the window). Selecting "add" causes the RAS screen to popup up a screen asking if it should install a modem (this occurs whether the modem has been installed prior to the RAS installation attempt or not) since no ports/modems are available for "adding".
Even if I go through the steps to "add" a modem, the newly installed modem does not display in the RAS screen and the
above scenario is again repeated. If I cancel out of the RAS
installation screen, it says that no settings will be saved
since no port/modem has been "added". Cancelling does indeed
not allow RAS to completely install as it never shows up in the Control Panel/Network services tab. Thus, I cannot get RAS to
completely reinstall onto the system.
2) None of the gasim's listed RAS entries exist in the Registry.
This seems to make sense since I cannot seem to get RAS to completely install and updating the Registry is likely one of
the last steps of the RAS installation process.
3) I have never gotten the machine to "recognize new hardware"
again except for the time mentioned in the original message. Removing all the modem entries via "Control Panel/Modems" and rebooting doesn't make any difference. It never has any trouble "adding" the modem (via Control Panel/Modems) if I have removed the modem drivers previously. However, the RAS installation never sees the modem drivers I have added in this manner. Note that the system does find the modem on Com3 correctly when it does its hardware search for modems.
4) Even if all modem drivers have been removed via "Control Panel/Modems" and the machine rebooted, I can still "see" the original modem driver entry in the "Start Menu/Applications/Phone Dialer program" via the "tools/connect using" menu dialog. However, I cannot access the "line properties" dialog box if the "original" modem driver is selected nor does this program provide a means of removing the driver. Any additional modem drivers that I may have installed later will show up here also and the "line properties" dialog box is accessible if one of them is selected.
Note that this "original" modem driver never does display in the "Control Panel/Modems" program. If it did, I could remove the driver from there.
Thus, the reason I suspect that the original modem driver has not completely uninstalled for some reason and/or the RAS installation does not point to the same list (or starting point of the list) of modem drivers that the "Control Panel/Modems" program does and/or that list of modem drivers has somehow been corrupted due to the partial uninstall of the "original" modem driver.
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