device manager is empty

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.

I also noticed yesterday that my McAfee security program (Built in to Cox
Cable ISP) was acting strangely with repeated openings of the McAfee Site
Advisor screen even after I closed it again and again.


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.

mbernstein wrote:
> 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 download copies of the HD onto an external HD a few days ago and that
> went fine.
>
> I also noticed yesterday that my McAfee security program (Built in to Cox
> Cable ISP) was acting strangely with repeated openings of the McAfee Site
> Advisor screen even after I closed it again and again.
>
>
> A possible lead: I was in msconfig for some reason and I am concerned that
> I clicked on something in the System Configuration Utility that has now led
> to this problem.

Msconfig has a "Normal Startup" option which might reset your changes.

> 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.

[URL="http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/n1051715405"]http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/n1051715405[/URL]

One solution from within the same thread:
[URL="http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/1105751079"]http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/1105751079[/URL]

Google Groups search:
[URL="http://groups.google.com/groups/search?q=device+manager+empty&qt_s=Search+Groups"]http://groups.google.com/groups/search?q=device+manager+empty&qt_s=Search+Groups[/URL]