pmsumner

My laptop's insurance/support people. I've had no modem available since I was pissing about with bluetooth and my phone, and somehow managed to delete all my COM ports. Don't ask me how, I didn't do it on purpose. No matter what I do now, I can't get them to re-appear!

So I bit the bullet and called them up, and blow me down wasn't the call answered within 10 seconds of it ringing! Considering last time I called them I was holding for 40 minutes at a time before I got through, I thought this was rather impressive. He asked me what I'd tried (add/remove hardware, add modems) and asked me to look in the device manager, and that was it. When the modem wasn't there he said he'd arrange to get it picked up and taken to be 'repaired'!

Astonished much? Oh yes! I'm wondering if a Windows reinstall would be the best route here. I'm going to see if I have a half-legal WinXP disk around and do that before they come to pick it up, I think. I've not much stuff on here that I can't either download or save on my small pen-drive (my main concerns are my financial/MSing records).

Fingers crossed i have a disk/key combination...