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Issues w/reformatting

CubaCuba Registered User regular
edited September 2007 in Help / Advice Forum
I recently reformatted my HP laptop and am experiencing a couple of problems. It is two years old and its specifications are as follows:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Service Pack 2

Intel Pentium 1.60GHz
590 MHz, 504 MB of RAM

My situation:

I decided to reformat the laptop and take it back to a clean slate, because I wanted to give it to my girlfriend for her use. So I put in the "Operating System CD" that came with the laptop into it, and proceeded to install the new operating system. I deleted the old operating system, reformated the vacant space, and then installed the new operating system.

Everything appears to be working so far, except for two things:

1. The computer says that there is no audio device. It does not put out any noise.
2. In the "Add or Remove Programs" list, it shows that there are no programs installed on the computer. It says this, even though Windows Media Player is installed.

O_o

If anyone has any suggestions on what I can do to bring this laptop back from the brink of death, I would appreciate it immensely. I have reformatted this thing before and never had any issues with the end result.

Cuba on

Posts

  • Uncle LongUncle Long Registered User regular
    edited September 2007
    You need to update your Windows XP. You can do the automatic update from Microsoft's website. Aside from that make sure that you have the latest drivers.

    Check Device Manager to see what you have there and then go through and download the latest drivers for your devices.

    If worse comes to worse try to reformat and install windows again.

    Uncle Long on
  • CubaCuba Registered User regular
    edited September 2007
    I downloaded all of the updates for Windows, installed them, and still did not have any luck.

    According to Device Manager, my audio stuff is good to go. Unfortunately, the laptop still does not play any sounds/music/noises, etc. Except for the aforementioned "bleeping" and whatnot. I told Windows to look for any new drivers for all of the audio, and all came back as being perfectly fine with what I have.

    So I reformatted again, but I still have the same issue: sound is nonexistent again.

    Does anyone have any suggestions or pointers? If more information about the computer is needed, please let me know, and I will provide it ASAP.

    Cuba on
  • Uncle LongUncle Long Registered User regular
    edited September 2007
    What's the specific model number?

    Uncle Long on
  • CubaCuba Registered User regular
    edited September 2007
    It is a HP Pavilion dv4000. At least, that is what is written on the bottom right hand corner of the screen.

    Cuba on
  • Fort1tudeFort1tude Registered User regular
    edited September 2007
    In device manager click Action, then Scan for hardware changes, if you see any yellow triangles with exclamation points or question marks or red X's you need to install the drivers for that device. Also go into Control panel, Sounds and Audio Devices, click on the Audio tab and see what is selected for Default Device.

    Fort1tude on
    Steam ID - Fort1tude
  • CubaCuba Registered User regular
    edited September 2007
    I was able to get the sound back. What had been screwing me up, was that I was only looking for faulty drivers under the audio section of the device manager, and completely ignored this "Other devices" section. I updated the drivers on what I could, and the sound come back! My only problem now, is that there are still three parts to it that I can not update the drivers on, because it scours the internet and then reports that it could not find any updates.

    Here is a screenshot of what I am looking at:

    screenshot1.gif


    ^^Does anyone have any idea about how I can get around this? I've tried viewing the details of each of the three faulty drivers shown in the screenshot, but I can't get any sort of idea of what the name of these things are, so that I could do my own Google search...

    Cuba on
  • CycophantCycophant Registered User regular
    edited September 2007
    Sounds like you'll need to update the display drivers and the harddisk controller (IIRC, that's usually what "Mass Storage Controller" is, is just a harddisk driver).

    Basically, your best bet is to pop over to HP's site, type in your model number, and then download whatever driver they have that sounds like a "Hard Drive Controller". You can d/l the video drivers from them too, but you're probably better off finding what kind of card you have, and just downloading them straight from the manufacturer.

    Cycophant on
    sig.gif
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