Help - trying to remove BraveSentry etc

[jholland1964]

I have been streaked with gray since I was in my mid twenties, thought it somewhat neat back then so I never retouched, just let it go...nearly 40 years..God that is a long time! But if I hadn't all ready been gray, this surely would have done it!
I am again going back through everything we have tried...guess we shouldn't have gotten so cocky yesterday...but I am looking through everything, there has to be something I have missed
Now this thing has me really ticked off, I want to beat it that is for sure.

[jholland1964]

You know I am totally grasping at straws here...can you tell?
You are running IE 7...wonder if this wonderful, more secure Internet Explorer has anything to do with your inability to download...see, I AM grasping at straws...

[StckFigure]

Not any more than I am... I thought of that... tried it in Firefox, too... no luck.

[StckFigure]

Okay... according to Device Manager, the reason I can't find my CD or DVD drives is because Windows can't load the device driver ("may be corrupted or missing"). Device Manager ALSO says this for my thumbdrive, though, which I'm using to shuttle files from this computer to that one, and THAT is showing up fine. So, I don't know if we accidentally wiped those drivers somewhere, or if something infiltrated them. Should I seek out drivers on this computer and move them over? go back online and do it directly on that computer? Something else?

[jholland1964]

Isn't this unbelievable! Do either of them SHOW in the device manager?
I don't believe there was any way the drivers could have been deleted..but at this point? You might try shuttling them via the thumb drive since you say this works ok.

[StckFigure]

They both show in device manager, but with the exclamation point saying they're inactive (same as shows with the thumb drive, but THAT works...). I think this is a good time for me to put it and me to bed for the night, though... it's somehow more frustrating when we're this close! Gah! Tomorrow is the breakthrough day... I can feel it! I'll try to bring the drivers over first thing in the AM.

[StckFigure]

Now this is cute... I downloaded drivers for my optical drives, which turn out to be not drivers but firmware, and when I go to install them, using Samsung's own software (they're Samsung drives), I get a message telling me they can't because the drive isn't found.

Well, thanks. Of COURSE the drive isn't found; that's why I'm installing the firmware.

Obviously I'm doing something wrong... any ideas?

EDIT: I've also deleted the drivers and let Windows re-find the hardware, which it did successfully. However, it found the hardware in the same state as deleted - namely, with an inability to load the "corrupt or missing" driver.

[jholland1964]

Did you uninstall the DRIVE or just the Drivers?

[StckFigure]

Both, I think.... in Device Manager, I did this:

Right-click on the drive
Uninstall
"Warning: You are about to uninstall the device from your system": Click OK
Drive designation disappears in DM
Repeat for other drive (two optical drives)
Reboot.
Re-open DM to find the same thing as before... namely, three drives (two optical and one thumb) under the DVD/CD-Rom heading [see note below] with the yellow exclamation mark.

** I figured out why the thumb drive is working right. It's actually not... it's a SanDisk Cruzer Micro, which means it does this thing where it creates TWO drives -- one that I know little about but seems to act as a CD drive called U3 and one that acts as a normal thumb drive should, an external HDD. ONLY the latter works... so whatever's wrong on the computer, it really IS affecting all optical drives, including the fake one that this thumbdrive tries to create. In other words, with the thumb drive in, I should have available drives C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K and L... D and E are the normal optical drives, G-J are media readers, K is the "optical" "U3" drive, and L is the external HDD from the thumbdrive. Right now, I don't have D, E, or K.

Hope that made sense :-X

[jholland1964]

PP suggests and I agree that you should use System File Checker to see if you can regain these corrupted files.
Since you can't use the CD drive first though you need to see if there is a copy of the Windows XP CD-ROM image on the hard disk. PRAY that it is there.
You are going to have to look for a folder named I386. There may be several but the one you need will contain close to 7,000 files, two of which will be winnt.exe and winnt32.exe.
Hopefully, you can find this. If you do write down the FULL Path to this file.
To run the system file checker press Start, Run, and then type in SFC /scannow


It validates the digital signatures of all of the Windows system files and restores any that it finds are incorrect. It will use the on-disk cache if possible, but SFC may require that you provide your original installation CD or a location with an image thereof.


Typically the "Insert CD" message has only an OK and Cancel button. Press OK, allowing it to fail. The next dialog will typically ask you to provide the location of the CD-ROM; just type in the full path of the I386 directory you discovered above.
Windows remembers. Now that you've told Windows where your installation CD image is it'll remember that. The next time you're in a situation that might require your installation CD Windows will look there first; if it finds what it needs then it won't bother to ask you for it.