Hi Pam: I've been building these machines since 1990, although I have called it quits years ago, except for family and close friends. I have a collection of 'obsolete' motherboards starting with the 8088 and the 8086 and so on. This is my process of ilimination and has no concern for your own abilities for analysis it's just the way it would have to be worded/questioned. If you want some help, go through these steps and send me an email. What sounds do you have? If no sound at all, make sure there is not an on off power switch on the back of your power supply box. Make sure it's on and all plugs are tightly in and your power bar is also switched on. If you hear the power supply box but not any of the fans, try switching out your memory cards, they (or one)may be what burned out. If you hear your fans as well, listen for one beep, if you hear it, all is well with your hardware and something is wrong with your operating system bootup. Make sure you have no floppy disc of cdrom in your drawers. Most systems' bios' are set to have at least one of these to boot up first, in case of the need. They must be empty when you boot up normally everytime, if they are set up to check for a bootup disk first. If your motherboard is fried you will not get anything but the powersupply fan. Although if your second memory slot (and maybe some other rare places) is fried keep memory cards out of it - check the teeth on the memory card to. If it's your first slot that's burned (I have a gigabyte board that burned this one out), your motherboard is done in. While your in there, clean it out - those viscious little dust bunny are wickeder than you think. Crossing currents where they don't belong. Make sure it's unplugged before working in a machine. Also tighten all connections/cables and you'll likelier to have a smoother and faster machine than you had - supposing we can get it working. You can email me and let me know where you're at with it. Your lucky you have a second machine. I always keep an old Win98 around, eccential for internet info for some repairs or analysis. Which environment do you have? Windows XP? It would help to know if you have a P2 or newer as well. 1 ghz or better. If so press F8 on boot up to try to get to safe mode. Once in, you can use system restore back to a prior date. Virus's can remove the boot sector (genb and genp are older virus' that did this) but that doesn't mean your machine can't be rebuilt. I'm hoping to avoid the process of booting up from another disk as that's a whole new ball game. It's pretty much a call to rebuild your software environment which will scrub out all your prior data. But it is a whole lot easier to rebuild than in the old days as long as you have all original disks. Keep 'em clean people, they'll purr for you - Sandy

Sorry not to nag... computers are not infallible, although we rely on them every day to perform work for us. they are not like a toaster or a can opener. they do have problems and can fail at any time. ALWAYS backup your data, and frequently, there are a few good programs that can make backups easier, store your files on a memory stick, or use an external hard disk, disk is cheap Backup your files weekly, or monthly and every so often take a copy of your data and put it a your safety deposit box. you will save yourself alot of pain when the inevitable happens. sorry for the rant, i'll step down off my soapbox.

There are lots of ways for Windows to become "corrupted" that have absolutely nothing to do with a virus or other malware. That's not to say that you didn't a some kind of infection and it's important to use software to protect your system. You also need to realize that tech support's solution to almost everything is to reinstall the operating system. Level 1 techs don't have the time or possibly the skill to diagnose every problem. So the pat answer is a fresh install. That's why it is so important to make regular backups of critical data. Invest in an external hard drive or use one of the online services like Mozy or Carbonite. If you are going to use an external device don't forget about multiple backups and offsite storage. All the backups in the world won't do you a bit of good if they are sitting next to the computer when the house burns down or a tornado strikes.

This is a very old post, but I think I know why your Filters and other elements of Photoshop disappeared. I think it is because after you installed Photoshop, you moved it (dragged it) to the desktop instead of creating an alias on the dock. This happened to us on some of our iMac computers in our high school digital classes. It took us a while to figure out that when a student complained that their Filter menu was no longer available, they had tried to move Photoshop to their desktop a la PC style setup, instead of creating an alias on their dock, and somehow this action truncated the program, rendering some of its features unusable. The solution is to uninstall the current Photoshop and then reinstall it.