Hey everyone, I let my sister borrow my computer the other day and I told her not to break it and guess what, she breaks it! Ok...so maybe it isn't broken, but something is seriously messed up. When I go to play music or a video the sound becomes extremely quiet and distorted, and sometimes almost sounds like it's echoing. I changed everything back to the default settings, now I have to keep my speakers muted otherwise they let out a huge "BEEP" constantly (I know this has to do with the mic being turned up too high or something but I can't turn it down since I can no longer access the volume controls) because when I go to control panel to "Sounds and Audio Devices" and check to have the volume icon show up on the taskbar (it had suddenly disappeared) I get this message: "Windows cannot display the volume control on the taskbar because the Volume Control program has not been installed. To install it, use Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel." As far as I know there is no such thing as a Volume Control program, and even if there is I never removed it and have no clue how to restore it. I'm also getting a message that something I need (SndVol32.exe needs to be installed). I'm assuming these two are related and SndVol32.exe is the volume control program, but how do I reinstall it?)
To make matters worse my computer hasn't been printing either, but I don't know if it's the computer or my printer. The sound issue is more important to me right now at the moment.
I have attempted to do a system restore and tried EVERY restore point on the computer and for some reason none of them worked. I kept getting the message that restore was incomplete and that no changes were made to my computer. Anyone know why I can't do a system restore?
At this point I figured I'd try to do a "dirty" reinstall of Windows XP and repair any problem areas, but my system won't let me use the cd, saying that the version of windows I have is newer than the version on the cd (I'm assuming this is because my computer has service pack 2 and the cd has service pack 1?) I don't want to have to go the "disaster-recovery" route and completely reformat my hardrive and reinstall XP because I have really important software I need for college on here that I can't lose since I'm at home now and don't have a cd for it, but right now it's looking like that's the only option since system restore won't work! Sorry this was so long, I just wanted to make sure I covered every detail that I could. Please help, thanks!
Edited by bhmax16, 12 May 2005 - 12:17 AM.