there is a program available from the manufacturer’s website for the hard drive in your machine.
For example: for a maxtor hard drive you would download MaxBlast http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=MaxBlast_5&vgnextoid=7add8b9c4a8ff010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD
the low level format done on your hard drive isn’t something normal people woiuld hear of since it virually cleans your hard drive down to the core, effectively wiping out all traces of programming on the hard drive.
and that is something the authorities don’t actually want in case they want to investigate you.
OK, we had to postpone the re-reformatting for a few days (Frank is busy) so I tried to find my sound card drivers and download them to see if that fixed it, but after spending all day online and downloading a lot of stuff, I’m still soundless. 
I tried using programs like DriverDetective that look for and install the drivers for you, but wouldn’t you know, you have to pay for the full features (and I do not own a credit card.) Sigh I guess I’ll have to wait until we reformat again. (Btw, that low-level thing sounds risky… if things get THAT bad, I’d rather just get a new harddrive.)
The only upside so far is that I finally found out the manufacturer of my machine (Asus). That may help in getting the right drivers (though the ones I got from their website didn’t help so far.)
not risky at all, I’ve done it many times when I had viruses or spy ware I could not get rid of.
if you take your machine to a computer tech, he/she might do the same thing just to make sure the infection is gone.
Downside is that usually the program for the low level format is put onto a floppy or A:\ drive disk. But I guess now a days you can put them on a usb stick provided your computer allows for a usb boot up.
Well, how about this? My computer just finished updating Windows with XP Service Pack 3 (don’t ask me why it took a week to do so) and now I CAN access my firewall again! Could it be that the virus is no longer on my PC after all, and I’ve been experiencing a few bugs?
However, I STILL can’t get my audio devices to work, despite my having downloaded the right driver from the ASUS website already. -_- The card itself doesn’t seem damaged. What do I do about it?? Damn I NEED to watch TV shows on my PC, local television SUCKS!!
BUT WAIT!! It appears I HAVE finally solved my sound card problem!!
Turns out it was a malfunctioning Codec (AC97) that was preventing it from working. After I identified it I downloaded it from the ASUS website and installed it… and now I CAN HEAR THE INTERNET AGAIN!!
:victoly:
Strangely tho, I got a warning from Windows that it didn’t recognize the codec and that I should not install it. But I said, what the Hell, I’ve tried everything else, if it causes trouble I’ll just uninstall it. So I’m on “cautiously hopeful” mode now.
If it IS solved, then I only will need to download the printer driver (which should be much easier) and I’ll be back on business! 
On the minus side, the extra memory card we added turned out not to be completely compatible and was causing my PC to crash, so we had to remove it. Ah well I’ll get another some other time.
congrats, i was about to suggest that you download the latest Realtek HD audio drivers for your asus sound card. I had a similar problem with my ac97 codec and that fixed it.
as for the memory, if your machine is the same as my xp machine then the memory stick have to be the same. 1gb + 1gb, 2gb + 2gb, etc
you can’t put in a 1gb +2gb, or 2gb + 4gb
…Oh, wait, I may have spoken too soon. Now my AVAST antivirus program won’t open. It was working fine since the reinstall but yesterday after I finished working on the sound card it just deactivated. Let me guess, I got a new virus that’s keeping it off, right? Typical. -_- Note that my Windows Firewall is still working tho. So- what do I do now? I ran Spybot and it found nothing. Should I reinstall Avast in case it’s a bug?
OK, reinstalled AVAST and that seems to have fixed the problem. Though I got an unwanted surprise when my computer SPOKE TO ME (“Your Virus Database Has Been Updated!”) It sounded pretty spooky when you’re busy reading and writing and suddenly hear a voice out of nowhere.
Though she did sound kinda sexy. 
None of my programs had ever addressed me directly before and I prefer it that way. Of course I changed the AVAST settings immediately.
Also downloaded the driver for my printer and it seems to be working fine.
And with that, my PC is back to working OK… in fact, better than before, even without the extra memory card. I can actually say that for all the grief it caused me, that virus ultimately helped me improve my computer use. Yeah, I’m a Silver Lining kinda guy.
The only annoying thing right now is that the MagicJack program (you know, one of those telephone things you can use through the internet? It was a gift from a friend) opens by itself every time I start the computer and it takes like five minutes to do so and slows my PC a bit while it does. I keep resetting it but every time I use it, it starts doing it again. Though this is a minor annoyance.
Thanks again to DN and everybody else’s help. (Let’s hope I don’t jinx it and something bad happens NOW. )