Cannot Use Multiple Instances of Some Adaptec Controllers

This article was previously published under Q125754

You cannot use two or more SCSI adapters that use the SPARROW.SYS device driver under Windows NT version 3.5.

The Adaptec AHA-1510, AHA-1520, and AHA-1522 adapters use the SPARROW.SYS device driver under Windows NT. Since the Windows NT 3.5 SPARROW.SYS device driver requires that the SCSI adapter be configured for interrupt (IRQ) 11, there will be IRQ conflicts, if you use more than one adapter.

NOTE: See section 15.6 of the Windows NT 3.5 README.TXT file for more information.

This was not true under Windows NT version 3.1. Therefore, when you upgrade from version 3.1 to version 3.5, you may experience hardware problems that did not exist under your previous installation of Windows NT.

To work around these issues, make sure all your Adaptec adapters (AHA-1510, AHA-1520, and AHA-1522) are configured for IRQ 11 and remove multiple instances of these adapters from your Windows NT configuration.