Help

i was messing around w/ my windows and its in a classic like mode with kind of xp looks...its not the desktop themes the xp theme is totally gone...i have no sound...my cd drives are weird i have a memorex dvd r and a asus cdrw and in the bios it only recognizes one at a time and it doesnt even show them when i go to my computer...i wana restore but i cant because it doesnt read the disks...is there any1 that can help me?

 

mayb if some1 could tell me how to reformat w/o a disk or floppy it mite fix it

 

There is no way for you to install xp without a disc.

 

well is there anyway i can make my drives work...cus they dont and i can reformat w/ them

 

If your problem is related to WinXP, it's a software issue, so you might want to post in the Software forum if you haven't already. But your comment about not seeing your drives in the BIOS setup suggests that your problem is a hardware issue. The BIOS interrogates your drives (or tries to) before WinXP becomes active on a machine.

Some possible causes to check out (not necessarily in the order shown):

• no power to the drive concerned - check the drive access light on bootup
• a faulty or improperly connected drive cable
• incorrect configuration in the drive table in your system's BIOS setup
• mechanical or electrical failure of the drives concerned

You might want to note that a Win XP restore will not correct a hardware problem (such as the above, or others) if they exist. Fix any hardware problems before you do a system restore.

You've said "and in the bios it only recognizes one at a time". That implies that sometimes the DVD is recognised by the BIOS, and sometimes the CD-RW. What do you do to make the system change the drive it recognises?

 

wait...can i like put my hard drive on another machine or get another on mine nd do the my comp then format the drive that i use on my comp...but id have to load the other comps hard drive tho right

 

Yeah. You could put your primary hard drive on another computer, and re-format it from there.

But what's your objective? What problem are you trying to solve? I don't see how that will make your BIOS see the optical drives that you're having a problem with.

If you take a primary hard drive from another machine and try to boot from it on your system, WinXP is likely to object -- from what I have seen in other threads. I suspect that it may also mess up the WinXP installation on the borrowed drive. But I don't know WinXP, so I'll let someone else deal with this issue.