Microsoft Sidewinder precision 2 joystick

[nbquidditch]

Hi guys.. My 1st post & I need your help! I'm a keen Flight Sim 2004 addic and have been using a Microsoft Sidewinder Precesion 2 Joystick for around a month now with no problem. The joystick originally installed automatically in XP.
I fired my computer today and suddenly the joystick does'nt work. In fact there's no sign of it. I went to Game controllers in Control panel located my joystick and clicked add to try & re-install. I now get a message saying ' Your Gameport or Gameport Drivers are not properly configured. Please consult the device manager'. I go to the Device Manager & my joysticks not there either. What's happened?? It was working perfectly when I turned off my computer earlier.

PLEASE HELP!!!

 

[sghiznaneck]

Try to see if you can find the drivers in the Contpol Panel>Remove programs sectoin. If it's there, uninstall it and conduct a fresh install from the Sidewinder disk that came with it. This could have occured due to a driver becoming corrupt.

 

[nbquidditch]

Thanks sghiznaneck.. I looked but there's nothing there in Add/Remove programs. I tried reloading with my install disk anyway but for some reason the installation just hangs when I click on install. Originally I didn't need the install disk. I just plugged it in and it worked. This is very frustrating.

 

[sghiznaneck]

There's a good possibility that the drivers have become corrupted. You may have to to an XP Repair, NOT a complet install. The disk will run and take a snapshot of your configuration and fix only what it needs to. All your files will still be intact, but the system will overwrite itself to correct all errors.

 

[nbquidditch]

Thanks Again sghiznaneck but not sure exactly what you mean! Do you mean a repair using the XP disk? If so this is not possible as XP was pre-loaded on my pc or is there another way?? Sorry if I sound a bit thick.

 

[sghiznaneck]

That's exactly what I meant, but with pre-manufactured pc's you aren't provided with anything other than a recovery disk. Have you tried going way back to a restore point??

 

[nbquidditch]

Fixed!

Thanks sghiznaneck I tried going back a month but it made no difference. However, I've solved the issue. On reboot I pressed the F12 key and came up with a diagnostic list. Within was a section where you could check your game controllers & ports etc so I ran the diag. All my ports etc passed ok so I wasn't confident but when I came out of diag and back into Windows my pc (Dell Inspiron 9400) immediately recognised my Joystick and bingo everthing was working again! Looks like the diag reset everything!
I want to thank you anyway for taking the time to post & give me some ideas. Cheers mate.