nosey1

110 reads n no help for ya yet? open notepad then copy in these 2 lines exactly,including the blank line between them. Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96C-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318 }000\Enable HW Volume Control then click file,save as,in file name box put setvol.reg click arrow to right of save as type box and select all files then click save button. you now have the reg file that will install your missing registry key,find the file you created and either double click it or right click and select merge.you can now follow the instructions in the microsoft page to hopefully cure your problem..

With your drive disconnected ,Open up device manager,click view tab at top of screen click show hidden devices in dropdown list,expand all trees by clicking + signs at left of lists,look for any paler grey instances of icons,(See pic-this shows old blown up scanner,after software was removed and a disconnected thumb drive) these "ghosts"represent previously used hardware that is not presently installed,multiple ghosts confuses windows,especially for drive letter assignment,right click on any usb or drive "ghosts" and click uninstall.shutdown machine,attatch drive n reboot,hopefully youre sorted.Only other reason i know that you wouldnt get a drive letter is if windows doesnt recognise the file system on the drive.

The problem is not the amount of programs installed but the LENGTH of the program names,if you right click on for example wordperfect office 2000,click rename and change it to wordperfect ,work through your whole programs list and reduce name length,problem solved.It only takes 1 excessive title to make your whole index wordwrap.

You havent said how badly xp is mangled so not sure what access youve still got to files etc. I think there should be a shortcut in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs,,in a subfolder with the internet links back to HP,My Hewlett Packard or system recovery or something like that,sorry to be so obscure,cant remember what the folders called,been a long time since ive had to do a similar repair on a HP..I think this shortcut points to c:\WINDOWS\SMINST\START.EXE,if this is true for your machine this may work(might need to run from dos) c:\WINDOWS\SMINST\START.EXE /RUN If f10 or f11 keys are not working the custom written HP MBR may have become mangled.so recovery from the hidden partition may be impossible. As youve cloned the drive it should be possible to unhide the hidden partition with partition magic or something similar to recover drivers etc or possibly start the recovery from within the hidden partition,would suggest you clone the clone before trying anything,also back up the wpa.dll (machines activated status) oembios.bin,oembios.dat and oem bios.sig from C:\WINDOWS\system32 and be aware that the license no on the case may not be the no that HP used to install the system with so get the TRUE no with belarc advisor or rockxp first.If youre really lucky you will have a c:\I386 folder which you can copy off and save to make youre own reinstall disc,,acquire a copy of home or pro or whatever is installed,replace the I386 on the cd with yours then after repair or reinstall using the TRUE license no copy back your backed up wpa.dll in safe mode.. best o luck with it

Do any of your games use starforce DRM???

Recently had the same problem myself,,i put it dovn to using the latest release of NLITE,have not had time to retest yet on an earlier version so cant be 100% sure. If you copy the missing files from an earlier source CD everything should be fine.