PXI-8156 Hard Drive Restore

[swperk]

I just acquired a PXI-8156 (not 8156B) controller with a failed and unrecoverable hard drive, so I replaced the hard drive with a suitable blank drive. Now I'm looking for a hard drive restore utility. Ideally, I'd like to have one that will give me Windows 2000, since that is the minimum OS required by my other PXI modules, but any restore utility will certainly get me started.

As a side question, will my PXI-8156 run Windows 2000 with just 32 MB of RAM, or do I need to expand it to 64 MB?

Thanks in advance,

Stan

[swperk]

Update: By copying an image of the Windows 2000 install CD to a directory on the PXI-8156 hard drive, I was able to install Windows 2000 successfully, and so far everything seems okay with one minor exception: In Device Manager, the "Secondary IDE Channel" shows up with a yellow question mark. Is there a specific driver that I am missing, or can I just deactivate this device and not worry about it? The hard drive seems to be fine, and there is no other IDE device that I am aware of in the controller. Thanks!

[Eric-E]

Well, if there is not a device connected to the secondary IDE channel, then I wouldn't be concerned. There should be only one IDE device: the single hard drive.

-Eric E

[swperk]

Thanks for the reply! Yes, everything about the controller seems to be working fine, even with the secondary IDE channel disabled, so I'll just leave it as-is.

My next problem is getting the PXI-8156 to recognize the Agilent N2100A digitizer that's installed in the chassis alongside it. The Device Manager sees a PCI Bridge Device that is definitely the N2100A (since it goes away when I remove the N2100A from the chassis and reboot), but it can't locate a driver for it. Supposedly, the Agilent N2100B software includes both the LabView and IVI drivers, but so far I can't seem to get the drivers to install. Once again, I'm open to ideas, hints, suggestions...

Regards,

Stan

[Eric-E]

They actually might be installed already. LabVIEW drivers could be simply VIs that use VISA calls to the device. Check out where the driver was installed then search for VIs in that location.