Hello. I have a Dell Optiplex 745 PC with 4 operating systems on a hard drive of 6 partitions. Each OS is on a different partition. The operating systems are Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, Windows Vista Business, Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000 Professional. Installation History: About two weeks ago I was posted around about problems I had in getting all the Windows OS to work together on the same hard drive. The IT department installed Win2000 after WinXP and that destroyed Xp's boot sector. I had to reinstall WinXP but my WindowsXP boot cd would not boot from the BIOS. I had to format the XP partition and copy the Win2000 partition into the WinXP partition. After this I booted up into that new copy of Win2000 and did a complete clean upgrade install into WinXP. After I resized the partition to give XP more space. Issue: All the OS work but I discovered a problem with XP and 2000 that must be solved. WindowsXP and 2000 do not detect a bunch of hardware. It seems the drivers are missing. I will list the devices that are under “Other Devices” in the Device Manager Tree. Each have the yellow question mark icon and state the drivers are not installed. Here is the list: Ethernet Controller PCI Device SM Bus Controller Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller Unknown Device Video Controller Video Controller (VGA Compatible) WinXP and 2000 state the same thing. I know all hardware works, there are no problems with Vista and Linux. WinXP and 2000 can not access the Internet (this is how I discovered the problem) since the network card is not being recognized due to no driver. Anyone know what is going on and how to solve this? Fixes I read about: I read that if you do an upgrade install or reinstall you need to disconnect all peripherals except keyboard and monitor. First of all this is ridiculous programming and second there should be a warning message about this. Could this be the source of the problem? If this is the case I think my company is going to just trash this idea, we do not have the time and desire to take apart this system. I also read one can disable and uninstall the “driver” in the device manager, reboot the system and let Windows automatically detect and install the driver. I am thinking of pursuing this. Anyone know if this will work? I can request to get the original Windows XP/2000 installation CDs from the IT department in case the drivers are on this CD. Thanks for your time.

Your question about disconnecting peripherals isn't very specifc. To what peripherals are you referring? PCI/ethernet cards, USB controllers, and graphic cards are not what I would consider peripherals, and you won't get very far on an installation without the video card installed. If you're having problems with devices being detected, you delete the device in Device manager. Don't disable it. It should then be detected when you reboot. Life is more painless for those who are brainless.

Wow that was fast. It seems to be what you said, PCI/Ethernet cards, USB controllers, and video card. I was not planning to disconnect any hardware. So you are saying pursue what I was talking about in my last paragraph...uninstall the driver in the device manager and just reboot? What if Windows does not automatically reinstall the driver? I would need to use the Windows installation CD during the automatic detect of driver software?

You need to install Motherboard chipset drivers for each of the OSes. Additionally, Win2000 must have at least SP3 installed in order to utilize USB 2.0 speeds. WinXP must have at least SP1 installed for the above reason AND to recognise and utilize Harddrives larger than 127GB. I can personally attest that you may have difficulty getting Win2000 and XP to both boot when using the Windows boot logger. I assume you are using a third party boot utility. If so you may not have those issues.

Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility Install the above first & reinstall all the other missing drivers for the OptiPlex 745 under XP & W2K.

Yes I am using Grub as a boot utility. I do need to update XP and 2000 but they both can not access the Internet. The eithernet card driver seems to be missing. Once I got the internet working I was planning to update to the latest service packs.

"The IT department installed Win2000" Is the IT Department responsible for the maintenance of the machine(s)? Are you authorized to be making changes? It's a good day when you learn something