Driver problem -- WinXP SP2

[Tony @ MPH]

This is for a customer of ours. I have tried everything I could to address the problem to no avail.

Here are the facts as I know them.

1. FSV2 unit itself is fine. We test each of them before shipping them out.
2. Unit works fine on Vista machine.
3. Unit refuses to work properly on XP SP2 machine.
4. Drivers fail attempting to install a file that does not exist in the driver package on the EFILive download page (I forget the name, but it is clearly part of *A* FTDI package, just not *THIS* FTDI package)
5. We tried uninstalling the driver through device manager.
6. We tried just "updating" the driver through device manager.
7. We tried uninstalling through control panel (which says it was successful) and then rebooting/installing FSV2 and manually pointing it to the drivers (unsuccessful)
8. We tried FTClean from FTDI's website
9. We tried manually deleting .INF and .DLL files from windows/system32/drivers.

I just can't figure out how to excorcise the driver ghost on this laptop. Any "nearly" successful attempt at getting the new drivers in always results in Windows asking for the disk with the FTDI drivers on it, because it wants a file that does not exist in the driver package.

Does anyone have any tried and true methods that work every single time to resolve this problem? Is the driver package in the downloads section just a driver update or is it 100% complete? I have not checked the INF files to see if they rely on some other file that already exists or should exist due to prior install or just as a native part of the OS.

:help2:

[Chevy366]

Good read on this :http://forum.efilive.com/showthread.php?t=244&highlight=ftdi+uninstall

[Tony @ MPH]

Hmmm, definitely some good info in there, but I am still not sure where to go with the customer at this point.

The problem is, even when we try to install the drivers from EFILive's download section -- both downloaded by the customer, and also emailed TO the customer from me -- there is a missing file that XP tries to install. It insists that the files for the FTDI driver are not complete.

It must be getting this information from an old driver that was installed. I know the FTDI USB->SER components are common. There is even one in the device I use to animate my Christmas lights :) So it's entirely possible to get a bad FTDI driver installed somehow but what really stumps me is the thread you posted says that EFILive has a unique PID. Therefore Windows should *not* be attempting to use an old or different driver, unless perhaps the customer manually installed a driver that he should not have.

Nonetheless, add/remove programs now does not show any FTDI drivers installed and we can't seem to find out how to remove the old FTDI drivers. About the only recommendation I can offer at this point is to do a fresh install on the box -- unless someone has a tip that will save him a lot of time and effort.

I can usually work these kinds of things out on my own machines and figure out where the rogue .INF file is hiding and nuke it and be on my way, but it's nearly impossible to do over the phone.

Oh, we could not get FTClean to work either -- on my XP machine it says Access Denied when it tries to write the INF file for the uninstaller and on his machine it passes through successfully but the uninstaller never runs.

Maybe if there's something simple I'm missing there we can get FTClean to run properly and nuke the old drivers entirely. :bawl:

[Chevy366]

I think the key thing in the post was not to be on the internet when doing the Install because Windows tries to download the FTDI file from the internet and it is the wrong one .
Someone more advanced than I in EFILive may have to help you on this I just saw the Post and thought it might help .
FTDI is usually a Serial to USB chip driver .
I would suggest "reg-cleaner" but don't know if that would help !
Start>Run>"regedit" , will bring up "registry editor" do "Search" for FTDI remove entries , be careful can cause bad results , maybe do a back up of registry first (export) and do "Search" all drives and remove FTDI found there .

[Tony @ MPH]

That is good info for sure. Unfortunately his laptop is not connected to the internet at all. We had to download drivers and exchange emails on another computer and then put the info on a USB key and take it to the tuning laptop.

Thank you for following up though, I appreciate any and all help on this one at this point.

I would even accept voodoo and chicken sacrifices as a viable solution at this point.

[Chevy366]

Someone will see this post and comment with the correct answer , don't give up just yet !
Step back and have a few :beer: :beer: .

[Tony @ MPH]

Thanks tunedbyGM. I actually just spoke to the customer again and he is going to come in and post anything that he has to add to hopefully help push this thread along.

I am lucky that he is technically competent so I don't feel as bad about recommending a reinstall, I just hate to tell him to do that because of the time commitment on his part.

I would say about 8 times out of 10 when I've had an issue like this in the past I can find the .INF file in \windows\system32 and \drivers just based on the name. But a lot of that is just based on me knowing what files Windows was likely to have installed, what files were installed by other manufacturers on the machine, and trying to identify a filename that sticks out as being an FTDI file.

About the only other thing I could think to do is to do a *text* search for the VID and PID across the hard drive. I think almost certainly if we can find the .INF file and delete it, Windows will no longer attempt to automatically install based on the old information and will take all the new information properly.

VID_0403 should be the manufacturer ID.

[Chevy366]

I found a .sys but no .inf for FTD2xx.sys in C:\WINDOWS\System32\drivers , maybe that is it ?
Back up before removing .

[Tony @ MPH]

Hmmm... we are still getting an error while installing the drivers, even when installing right off the CD.

"The system cannot find the file specified."

[Chevy366]

The FTD2xx.INF is located in the EFILive folder C:\Program Files\EFILive\V7or 7.5 which ever you have \Dirvers\FlasScan\Win-98-Me .
FTD2xx is the FTDI lookup .
.INF is a setup information file .
Make sure the FlashScan is not plugged in before installing the driver .

[Tony @ MPH]

Well, the install directions on the CD which have always worked for me do indicate to plug the Flashscan in so that Windows PNP will start the driver install process. We've tried various ways including with the FSV2 plugged in and without it plugged in but always the same result:

"The system cannot find the file specified"

It does not tell us which file it's looking for.

[Chevy366]

So you have removed EFILive software , removed the registry entries for EFLive and any files found doing a drive search that remains for EFILive and then re-installed EFILive ?
Pretty odd , should be a entry in system log as to what has happened , drwatson.exe (start>run>Drwtsn32.exe , will appear in task bar) does sometime show system errors , saves a log in drive:\Documents and Settings\All Users.WINNT\Application Data\Microsoft\Dr Watson

[chevroletfreak]

My first post here!

Well, here is an update from the recipient of this wonderful software. (I'm so freakin lost right now.)

We tried everything. I sincerely want to thank Tony at MPH. He was very helpful and spent something like 3-4 hours on the phone trying to help me get this thing loaded. The amazing part is that I am overseas and a lot of it was even on his dime. Tony you rock!

I spent most of the day yesterday formatting the computer and starting from scratch. I loaded the drivers and........It now works as advertised! I guess windows just lost something over time.

Thanks for everyones input. I am positive you will be hearing a whole lot more from me on here.

[Chevy366]

Glad it all worked out , to bad you had to reload Windows though . :)

[Tony @ MPH]

Hoo-rah! I finally got a chance to "troll" the forums and spend some time diving back into the threads to find this one. I am really glad it worked out for you.

Yeah, that driver issue had me stumped. I've fixed other driver problems about a bajillion times (usually for other people :muahaha: ) and I just could not figure out where or why things went badly.

As I mentioned the FTDI component is common in so many devices that it's most likely an old/bad driver from the past... but what really got me questioning that is the fact that EFI *should* have it's own unique VID (or PID, I forget... it's late) and Windows should not have associated anything else to the V2.

:rockon:

[Chevy366]

Got to love Windows .
Windows is strange about how it remembers things , in the Win98 days you did not just load from the CD if you did every time you installed something it would ask for the CD .
So I use to copy the .cab (cabinet files) to the drive , copy D:\win98\ *.* (don't remember the exact syntax) kind of thing , kind of strange it happened but have loaded hundreds of copies of Windows (found driver install sequence is critical) and not one seemed to be the same every time .
Why I use Linux now and have for several years , not saying it is better , just it's not Windows .