A common problem following the replacement of a hard drive (or other low-level storage-related change, such as a storage driver or interface change) is a broken Windows Update. \u00a0I’ve been seeing this more and more frequently, in fact, on Windows 7 machines after performing drive recoveries and installing a new drive.<\/p>\n
The exact message is:<\/p>\n
Windows Update cannot currently check for updates, because the service is not running. \u00a0You may need to restart your computer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
While lots of solutions are offered across the internet for this problem, ultimately, it’s actually relatively simple: the storage driver is frequently to blame. \u00a0Specifically, the Intel storage driver (generally iaStor.sys), which comes as a part of the Intel Matrix Storage Manager<\/strong> package (renamed to Intel Rapid Storage Technology<\/strong> on later versions of Windows).<\/p>\n
It’s been documented in other places as well<\/a> that this is in fact the root of the problem.<\/p>\n
Problem is, there are different versions of the Intel Matrix Storage Manager for each manufacturer — so it isn’t always possible to simply download the latest version directly from Intel and install it.<\/p>\n
The HP version of that driver is listed above, and it will indeed work for many systems in question. \u00a0For other manufacturers, it’s best to search for the driver manually and download it directly from the PC manufacturer’s web site. \u00a0You can use search terms such as:<\/p>\n
intel rapid storage technology driver ich10r site:dell.com vista 32-bit<\/a><\/p>\n
To locate a suitable version for your particular situation.<\/p>\n
If this still does not correct your issue, you may need to follow up the driver upgrade with a reset of the Windows Update repository:<\/p>\n
\n
- Open an elevated Command Prompt (Run as Administrator).<\/li>\n
- Type the following commands (pressing ENTER after each one):\n
\n
- net stop wuauserv<\/li>\n
- net stop bits<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
- Open a Windows Explorer window and navigate to %WINDIR% (e.g., normally C:\\Windows).<\/li>\n
- Rename SoftwareDistribution to SoftwareDistribution.old.<\/li>\n
- Return to the elevated Command Prompt and type these commands:\n
\n
- net start wuauserv<\/li>\n
- net start bits<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
This\u00a0procedure has corrected the problem on all of the PCs where I’ve encountered it thus far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A common problem following the replacement of a hard drive (or other low-level storage-related change, such as a storage driver or interface change) is a broken Windows Update. \u00a0I’ve been seeing this more and more frequently, in fact, on Windows … Continue reading