HELP i cant even connect to my devices!

col85

i have just purchased a lab to help with my CCENT/CCNA

my laptop has no serial port so i have a usb-serial but cannot get it working

i have vista on the laptop and it cannot locate the drivers nor can the drivers on the CD get it working

anyone had this prob b4?

pogue

Yup... Vista is kinda screwy that way.

First.. Don't panic. Who is the manufacturer of the adapter you have? Is there only one driver on the CD? If so, install the driver, and reboot. I installed the driver for mine, and it didn't "take" until I rebooted.

After driver installation, reboot, and then go into Device Manager and check the "Ports" subsection, and see if anything like USB-COM, or USB-232 is showing. If so, then your device driver worked just fine.

If you can get to that point, it is just a matter of configuring your terminal software to connect.. If Windows Vista is seeing your adapter in Device Manager, then your terminal software should see it as well.

I'll leave you at this point. Give a little bit more information about what problem you are having with the driver, first off. My adapter was a generic device, and therefore, have about a million drivers on the CD. My device had a HL-340 stamped into the plastic, so I just did a search of the CD for 340, and installed the driver with that name..

One reboot later, and good to go!

I'll work you through this if I can, but I need a little more info on the problem. But yes..I had the exact same problem with Vista. It is supposed to automatically recognize stuff like this, but it doesn't. It's a craptastic OS. I only use it because my wife's laptop has it and it is a lot smaller than mine...

Russ

col85

i got it from maplins, Nikkai usb-serial adaptor, code ZP43W.

i searched and found the driver that matched the code, but no joy

i let vista find its own from the net, found one. also didnt work

i am currently using an old laptop with XP and the cd drivers worked fine. Ideally tho i want to use mu current laptop

but at least i know the drivers and device work

in the DM it still shows that the device is not installed correctly

Netwurk

Well at least you got it going and can start concentrating on IOS configs. Knowing how to make laptops that run Vista connect to a Cisco console port isn't something you need to know for the CCNA (or any Cisco exam).

I have a bunch of Vista licenses that I don't even use - it's a horrible OS in my opinion. Don't know if I'll even bother renewing my MS partner pack to get Win 7.

Stick with 2000/XP or Windows 2000/2003 Server for your Cisco studies. (Windows 2008 server is actually pretty good, but probably too costly for most folks).

To be honest, you can have an all Linux lab when studying the Cisco materials. Windows isn't really needed.