Do I really need to reformat

  • Thread starter Thread starter old guy
  • Start date Start date
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old guy

Have a Dell Deminision 8300 I bought spring 2004. Worked very well
until this week. Called tech support and, after 3 days and many tries,
they suggest I reformat and reload all apps - their claim is the
registry is corrupt. Here are the problems.
A few days ago my USB external HD was no longer recognized by the PC.
A few days later the USB mouse was no longer recognized.
(BTW, in most cases, I get an 'Unknown Device' in Device Manager and
a message similar to "The device has malfunctioned and is no longer
recongnized by Windows.")
Today, my USB printer and PDA cradle (USB) are not recognized.
Nor can I connect to the PC with my laptop - the PC has a USB wireless
router.
I have plugged the printer, HD, and mouse into my laptop - all work.
One test desired by support was to reboot to the 'Dell ResourceCD' in my
CD drive. Won't work. Always boots to WinXP as usual. No matter what
we tried, the PC (apparently) couldn't boot to CD.
Clearly, I prefer not to reformat and reload all data. But I also
can not understand how a registry error would cause USB ports to die
over 5-7 days or cause my PC to 'lose' the CD drive.
Suggestions/comments/reactions welcome
 
Have a Dell Deminision 8300 I bought spring 2004. Worked very well
until this week. Called tech support and, after 3 days and many tries,
they suggest I reformat and reload all apps - their claim is the
registry is corrupt. Here are the problems.
A few days ago my USB external HD was no longer recognized by the PC.
A few days later the USB mouse was no longer recognized.
(BTW, in most cases, I get an 'Unknown Device' in Device Manager and
a message similar to "The device has malfunctioned and is no longer
recongnized by Windows.")
Today, my USB printer and PDA cradle (USB) are not recognized.
Nor can I connect to the PC with my laptop - the PC has a USB wireless
router.
I have plugged the printer, HD, and mouse into my laptop - all work.
One test desired by support was to reboot to the 'Dell ResourceCD' in my
CD drive. Won't work. Always boots to WinXP as usual. No matter what
we tried, the PC (apparently) couldn't boot to CD.
Clearly, I prefer not to reformat and reload all data. But I also
can not understand how a registry error would cause USB ports to die
over 5-7 days or cause my PC to 'lose' the CD drive.
Suggestions/comments/reactions welcome
Click to expand...

Try here,
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm

HTH :)



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old guy:
Clearly, I prefer not to reformat and reload all data. But I also
can not understand how a registry error would cause USB ports to die
over 5-7 days or cause my PC to 'lose' the CD drive.
Click to expand...

A Real Player uninstall that went very wrong, corrupted my registry in
Win95 and would only boot from floppy. The good folks in Redmond spent
hours on the phone with me trying to salvage the data on the hard drive
but we couldn't reinstall Windows. Microsoft eventually recommend that I
reformat the drive, but I stubbornly worked on it until I eventually got
Windows to reinstall. MS gave me a list of commands and switches that made
it possible for me to eventually figure it out.
 
old guy said:
Have a Dell Deminision 8300 I bought spring 2004. Worked very well until
this week. Called tech support and, after 3 days and many tries, they
suggest I reformat and reload all apps - their claim is the registry is
corrupt. Here are the problems.
A few days ago my USB external HD was no longer recognized by the PC.
A few days later the USB mouse was no longer recognized.
(BTW, in most cases, I get an 'Unknown Device' in Device Manager and a
message similar to "The device has malfunctioned and is no longer
recongnized by Windows.")
Today, my USB printer and PDA cradle (USB) are not recognized.
Nor can I connect to the PC with my laptop - the PC has a USB wireless
router.
I have plugged the printer, HD, and mouse into my laptop - all work.
One test desired by support was to reboot to the 'Dell ResourceCD' in my
CD drive. Won't work. Always boots to WinXP as usual. No matter what we
tried, the PC (apparently) couldn't boot to CD.
Click to expand...

Up until this point I would have said faulty USB controller on the PC
(assuming your CD is not USB)
 
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