Reformatting my PC or not?

PCNoob2

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Some of you may remember a few days back a posted a question about photoshop on my PC. Basically, it installed and everything, then when I went to start the program it said a critical application library was missing and to reinstall the program. Well, I did that and the same error came up.

Well, know it seems it's spread to some of the games I play. It's not the exact same problem but I think it's got something to do with a faulty OS. Anyways, when I boot up World of Warcraft I can play for a few minutes and then BAM it hardlocks. Everything freezes, and the sound keeps repeating itself over and over again really quickly. And the only way to get out of this is to manually turn off the computer and to turn it back on.

So, when I posted, one of the suggestions was to reformat the OS (Windows XP). But I have a few questions about that. Well it completely erase everything? Because I share this computer with my dad and he stores a lot of his music on the hard drive and it would be a shame to lose it all. I mean, it's A LOT of music so I don't think I can back this up.

Furthermore, when we bought this computer we don't remember getting a Windows XP CD or maybe we lost it, but we did get a "Restore CD" is that pretty much the same thing?


And maybe reformatting is a little extreme so maybe their are some windows service packs, fixes, patches, etc. that we can download and maybe use to fix this problem on the computer.

Is there anyway to tell what service packs you have, what fixes you need, etc.

Thanks.

It's weird I can't even access my control panel. It gets that error message that says "End now".

This computer is quickly going downhill =(
 
yes, reformatting erases EVERYTHING. what you can do, is plug in another hard drive and just keep the songs on the other one while you reformat
 
Does sound like you need a good reformat. Put put another hard drive in and put the music on that - and reformat the main hard drive.

I think the restore CD will be the OS disc - put it in while the PC is on, and see what happens!

Run updates first, and check you got service pack 2 in "Control Panel > System > and you will see your OS and under the service pack you have.
 
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