Thanks for your suggestions:
1. Open .ptf of the SOPC system and see if it has NIOS component. - Yes, its a II/e
2. Open components directory (this is inside your project) and see what components are available there. -
There is no components directory: perhaps that is specific to Q8? I'm trying to get Q7.1 & NiosII IDE 7.1 to work again, because installing Q8 broke my build environment on the old laptop.
3. Check in your project in IDE if HAL libraries of NIos are installed or not.
Lots of avalon drivers in the device driver folder. No mention of HAL libraries but I have created a syslib based upon my .ptf
Ken