I recently just defragmented my primary partition. The next time I come back to use my computer, my MP3's aren't playing (Usually when my sound isn't working, I just restart my computer), so I restarted my computer. I heard the Windows logon sound play, so I figured restarting fixed the problem. I go to play one of my MP3's in Winamp, but it won't play.(It just stays at 0:00, and won't allow you to play it, and this happens when my audio isn't working, so I knew there was a problem) I tried playing it in Windows Media Player, it gives me this error: Cannot play back the audio stream: no audo hardware is available, or the hardware is not reponding. Note: Audio device in the Device Manager says that the device is working properly. I know that my sound is working beause I still hear the error WAVs playing when an error or something pops up. Also, I can't access Sound from my control panel...which is odd (I open it, but nothing happens). I can also play audio CD's on my CD-ROM, so I really have no idea why I can't play my MP3's, and I didn't think the defragmentation had anything to do with this problem. So can anyone give me any suggestions on what the problem might be? Anything would be appreciated. Thanks a lot.

Go to 'multimedia' in control panel and see what playback device is selected.

Weird... Multimedia won't open either. It seems to be just Sounds and Multimedia that aren't opening from the the control panel. I scanned for virii by the way, no luck ;\

Go to 'add/remove programs' in control panel and click the 'windows setup' tab. Scroll down to 'multimedia' and click once on it to highlight it and then click 'details'. You may need to uninstall/reinstall some of the stuff there.

Nope, it's all installed.

ctrl alt delete, close everything but explorer and systray. then try.. odds are, you have another program loading at startup that is taking over your soundcard.

Still no luck... :( And I don't want to resort to formatting, so ANYMORE IDEAS??