Xp gone rogue

[rfleming]

Heya all,
I have a bit of a problem here. My buddy has a toshiba laptop. Well we booted it up today and the system went into classic theme with out being told. WE went to set it back to xp and found the setting missing. We then in turn tried going on line with it to find a help file, only to find that the internet will not work. The network devieces are no longer there. The deviece manager is completely blank and add hardware no longer works. Also all our system restore points are gone. I tried safe mode and several configuration of msconfig. I have no idea now. Anyone help?

Thank you,

[flanzig1]

The first thing to do is run scans for viruses/malware/adware to make sure that it is clean.

[bailey]

I had something simular to that with files missing and some xp programs not working correctly, and the add/remove programs data would not load correctly.
there was no virus or anything that should not be there,
what I ended up having to do was the system restore with the restore cd that came with it.and now everything is back to normal.
yes doing this is the last resort, but it wqas needed.

[rfleming]

Well system restoer points were lost, so no dice on that. Turns out all his services were turned off. If figured this out my searching the ms database. We set them up according to my computer and everything started working again.

Second quick question now. He downloaded Counter Strike Source. His computer mets the min req. But when he loads it, i freezes up. The blurred logo screen comes up, then it goes black with a small white dotted line and a mouse that does not move. Any ideas on this one?

Thank you,