Win98 loses sound on reboot and Win2000 loses USB on reboot

[purplewombat]

Hello everybody OK, i have 2 problems at the moment: 1) I have a windows 98 SE computer that lost sound unexpectedly. I can re-install the drivers and the sound works peachy but... when i reboot the machine it says that the device is either not present, not working or has not got the correct drivers installed. Yet it worked before the reboot. 2) I have also got a windows 2000 computer that does the same kind of thing but with the USB ports. I can install them, they work, web cam will work but again, on restart it says that the device is either not present, not working or has not got the correct drivers installed. If anyone could shed some light i would be very gratefull, as this has me snookered. Thanks in advance. PurpleWombat

[ccb056]

scan and remove any adware or viruses, then reinstall windows over itself also, run a hard drive diagnostic on both computers to make sure there are no bad sectors

[purplewombat]

Thanks for the reply ccb056, I have run Adaware Personal and AVG Antivirus (free) on the windows 98 machine and used scandisk. But still no joy If i re-install windows 98 over its self will it delete all my files and settings? I don't have any way of backing data up, except floppy disks As for the windows 2000 machine, its not on the internet, scandisk didn't find anything and i installed it yesterday morning! So i haven't got a clue, what to do with that. Thanks for replying so fast ccb056 (1:11am). PurpleWombat

[ccb056]

if you reformat the machine, you will loose your data, but if you just install windows over itself, you will keep all your programs and files, the only difference is all your windows files will be updated. Go to the hard disk's manufacturer's website, download their diag tools, and run them, it will tell you if something is physically wrong with the disk.

[purplewombat]

Ok, thanks alot ccb056 Just didn't want it deleting everything. Will try that out. PurpleWombat