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MrEchoFlag for Namibia

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Windows cannot load drivers of some devices

Some of the devices on my laptop have stopped working in one of my Windows installations. I have a dual-boot XP setup and these devices are working fine in the other installation.

According to device manager (I have attached a screenshot), several devices have a yellow exclamation mark next to them and the error code I get is the following: "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)".

I have tried unistalling and reinstalling the devices and drivers but to no avail.

I have found a similar question to mine on your database and the solution given was to reinstall the chipset drivers. I have re-installed the chipset drivers which I downloaded from HP, but this does not solve my problem.

It seems the problem only affects the devices which use COM ports.

Your help would be greatly appreciated, because I want to spare myself of having to reinstall XP from scratch.

Thank You,
Mark
Screenshot-Device-Manager.pdf
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TCB1
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Try using the "driver roll back" feature or system restore to a point when everything worked. Since you have a dual-boot setup on the same machine here is another option.

Download DriverMax. http://www.innovative-sol.com/drivermax/
Use it's import/export feature to export the drivers in the XP that is working. Then boot to the XP thats with the problem and import the drivers that you need. You don't have to export all the drivers, just the ones for the items that are having issues in the other XP.

Also, you can let DriverMax search for drivers for you. This may be another way to get things working. I'd try the other ways first.

Hope this helps.
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orangutang

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ASKER

Thank you very much orangutang! That did the trick. I read somewhere about deleting the upper and lower filters but I could never find the right location in the registry! Again, thank you very much, you have spared me a lot of time and effort! Great Stuff! Regards,
Mark
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ASKER

Thank you for your answers guys. I tried orangutan's registry fix first, which fixed the problem. Just for clarity, I downloaded the registry fix file and added it to my registry. Then I went to Device Manager and saw that the yellow exclamation marks were still there. All I did then was uninstall the devices giving the problem, scan for hardware changes and voila, Windows was able to load the drivers and the devices are working now! Excellent! No more re-install required! I am truly greatful.
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orangutang

Thank you, I should have said to restart after opening the reg file.