device manager shows nothing -- Please HELP!!

  Please help!!!

I am not sure what I have done, but my system is suddenly very screwy.

My device manager shows nothing at all.

When I connect an external HD, it is not recognized at all.

System Restore will not let me go back any further than yesterday.  I can
not go back to the previous month.

In the past week I was in the process of trying to virtualize this PC using
VMWare Fusion but I do not think this is a result of that. All I did on this
PC was downlaod copies of the HD onto an external HD a few days ago and that
went fine.

A possible lead:  I was in msconfig for some reason and I am concerned that
I clicked on somethind in the System Configuration Utiltity that has now led
to this problem.

I note that my display looks different too.  The fonts on the minimized
windows looks different and the background colors on the Start Menu is gone
(changed from blue to just white).

Any help at all would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

 What's your OS?Is it XP MCE 2005?

If so, then try this:-

"Restore the Device Manager"

Line:107:Right.

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

regards,
S.Sengupta[MS-MVP]




mbernstein wrote:

 

Thank you for answering my post.
I tried your suggestion but no luck, even after rebooting.

Other ideas?

Thanks.

 Click Start > Run and type services.msc > OK.


Scroll down to Plug and Play and Double-click on it.

If you receive a Configuration Manager message, click OK.
In the Startup Type list, click Automatic, and then click OK.
Close Services.

Restart the computer.

regards,
S.Sengupta[MS-MVP]


mbernstein wrote:

 

I tried this approach last night based upon a previous post you had to
someone who had lost his device manager a couple of years ago, but it did not
help either.  

Any other thoughts?

I am running a virus scan as we speak.

Thank you.