Computer question
 

OK, all you Mac fans can just skip this and go, smugly, on your way.....

My home desktop running XP can't find a bunch of stuff that is installed.
Can't find drive E an internal CD/DVD
Can't find drive J and external DVD on USB connection
Can't find the printer,also a USB device,
All of these were OK until a few weeks ago.
The keyboard is also a USB, but its OK.

When I run the device manager, I see yellow icons next to the drives E and J. The computer says that the correct drivers are installed, but it can't find the devices.
I have done several restarts with no improvement.

Any ideas, or is it time for professional help?

You might try System Restore, taking it back to a time when everything worked properly. The yellow icons are warnings that something is wrong in each of those files; normally there should be no yellow icon in Device Manager (although a lot of times a reboot will clear them up).

X2 on system restore but first take the cover off and see if something has come loose... (sorry specifically the connectors on the back of the hardware)

EDIT:-
Sorry hang about that won't probably apply on the USB related problems if you've got everything on one mother board.

Sometimes just doing a Windows update helps.

When you are there in device manager, you might try uninstalling the offending drivers and then reboot. It should reinstall them and may fix it.

For USB, unplug the devices then power down, restart with them unplugged and let it load everything. Then plug them in one at a time.

For the hard drive you can try a similar strategy. With power off, you could either unplug the power cord or the data cable, reboot, power off again, then reconnect the cable. Or you can use device manager to remove the drive, reboot, and see if it auto detects and re-installs the drive.

Im a Mac guy and even I can tell you might be booting into safe mode.

During boot keep close attention to the screen. Make sure its not booting in safe mode. Or any other mode besides normal.

It is not booting into Safe Mode.

I think it's obvious that your computer is a left-leaning liberal....:D

I tried the "system restore". The interesting thing was that there are no restore points before Dec 11,2011. My guess is that whatever bug hit my system hit it on Dec 11, and eliminated the prior restore points.
When I attempted to restore to 12-11-11, everything ran OK, but then I got a msg that restore was incomplete, and was not successful. I was prompted to pick another date. My guess is that I will always get an error msg.

I tried this, too. No success.

This must be it. Who can make a left-leaning liberal work?:)

But the printer and optical drives are now working? The system probably hiccupped with an update and dumped the drivers.

I'd do a virus/system scan to ensure it's a "clean" configuration - don't overreact to some messages about things like a zipped printer driver file being flagged as a "decompression bomb" like I got recently with Avast - and then create a new system restore point and save that in a separate location.

If you keep getting error messages, an upgrade to a new machine with a new OS might be worthwhile. There should be bargains after Christmas. If it behaves itself, then just back up your data and press on with XP. Vista was sort of bloated, but Win 7 seems okay.

Macs ROCK!!!. :D

Hackers are getting very good.

I tried to get my first computer loaded with a program or two and send it off to the less fortunate, I wasn't online for more than a minute or two, I was hit with something, now it's useless. Not up to date enough for me to spend money on it.

Good luck.

Not all Mac users are smug, I find them a superior piece of equipment vs windows, that's all.

What suits me may not suit everyone.

I apologize in advance MSFowler as this isn't helpful at all.. but XP...

http://bbsimg.ngfiles.com/1/23445000...1ff7c57d5c.jpg