HELP!

Today I loaded up my computer and found the following problems. I'm not sure if they are connected or not... I don't know what to do.

1. Windows XP theme is missing. Everything looks like the classic theme.
2. My printer and scanner are not showing up as devices (but yesterday they were. All still plugged in...) And speakers may not be working.
3. The blower fan in my hard drive is blowing louder than it usually does... not sure what that would mean, but it rarely blows and its constant now.
4. When I went in and physically tried to load XP theme I got error messages.

Is this something I can fix? I have my Windows XP CD, but I'd rather not reload or repair if I can help it, I don't have a back up of a lot of my files and would be very sad to lose them (no external harddrive or CD burner either)

What should I do?

I'm currently putting my files on an online backup site... but it may take a couple days to get it all up. I am a photographer and have lots of large photo files.

So if I need to restore, I can... just tell me how to get my beautiful computer running like it was!

Welcome to the forum. Theres a few problem there which could be all sort of reasons so first we will eliminate some of the potential problems.
First can you check inside the case that there isnt a lot of dust and the fans are working ok as heat could be one problem.

Second can you in explorer right click on drive c: and choose properties then tools and check the hard drive tick the boxs to fix all errors. It will then say it cant do it as its in use do you want to do it on next reboot say yes.
On boot up watch to see if it finds any errors.
If you have AV as a precaution scan for virus.
What is the error message you get with the themes?
Do you have any other problems?
Check the temp of your pc often this can be found by going into the bios and selecting health do this after its run for a while report temp.

Let us know how you get on with this so we can eliminate faulty HD and temp

Try a System Restore to a couple of days before the problem occurred.

An alternative quicker backup solution would be to buy an external hard disk, either USB or Firewire.

First can you check inside the case that there isnt a lot of dust and the fans are working ok as heat could be one problem.
I did this. Looked fine to me. I blew out some dust, booted up and no change.

Second can you in explorer right click on drive c: and choose properties then tools and check the hard drive tick the boxs to fix all errors. It will then say it cant do it as its in use do you want to do it on next reboot say yes.
On boot up watch to see if it finds any errors.
I did this, no change. Didn't see any errors.

If you have AV as a precaution scan for virus.
virus scan this morning didn't turn anything up. Neither did Spybot S&D Scan.

What is the error message you get with the themes?


I went to computer management and couldn't find any way to turn on theme service....

Do you have any other problems?

Still not recognizing the printer/scanner or the speakers but other than that... no.

Check the temp of your pc often this can be found by going into the bios and selecting health do this after its run for a while report temp.

I downloaded everest. Says the computer is running at 52 Celsius. From what I can gather, that's plenty cool, right? But the fan is still running rather loudly...

Don't you have to have done a system save at some point? I'm embarrassed to say I haven't.

For themes now we have the error messages we can fix that open control panel then admin tools then services select standard at the bottom and scroll down to themes double click on that it should say in startup type automatic if it isnt change it from the drop down list then in server status it should say stopped click on start once its started your theme should then work ok.

In control panel system device manager is there any yellow markers against the sound usb ports or anything?

For the printer check the manufacturers website for any new drivers download and install see if that fixes it. Can you plug anything else into the usb ports the printer uses like a memory stick and see if that works ok then we know its no a usb port fault