Check your eventlog for signs of disk failure. And make a full backup right now, just in case.
*ASB *(Professional Bio <http://about.me/Andrew.S.Baker/bio>) *Harnessing the Advantages of Technology for the SMB market... * On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 7:10 AM, Alan Davies <[email protected]>wrote: > Ok, so I'm desperate now! Something has gone seriously wrong with my > primary system and I'm really struggling to avoid a rebuild (days of > hassle). Has anyone ever seen Device Manager come up with "unknown" for the > device category (*not* the actual device driver) and for the correct drivers > to still be listed? > > It's Win 7 Ultimate N 64 bit on AMD and has been working perfectly well for > over a year. 8800GT graphics drivers were updated a couple of weeks ago, > but no other changes of note and it's been used every day since then. The > graphics driver suddenly started crashing, followed by BSODs, which I > alleviated for a while by removing the drivers and using a WDM one, but now > it's doing it again. That seems like a symptom however, since many apps > won't run at all (say they're not for this version of Windows) and Device > Manager has gone all bizarre. > > I can't do a System Restore as it fails and most software won't run so I > can't easily install anything new. Safe Mode is rock solid though so I can > still get online from there ok. I've been Googling for the Device Manager > quirk, but just can't get any relevant results as seeing "unknown" for the > device driver is such a common topic .. I can't get anything on the parent > level having that text despite functional drivers existing (removing and > re-adding doesn't make any difference). > > Does this ring any sort of bells with anyone? Failing anything else to > try, I'm going down a Win 7 repair road tomorrow I guess, and failing that, > a clean re-install. Both are a severe headache and waste of a bank holiday > weekend though! :o( > > > > > a > > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
