My computer is not doing so well. when I startup win Xp, i get "New hardware found". I have no new hardware. When I look in the device manager i see "Other devices" which is a big yellow questionmark. When I hit the plus sign it says "unknowen device" this as be happing for a week or so but i havent added anything

How to troubleshoot unknown devices that are listed in Device Manager in Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314464

I had this with one of my printers which, although installed, wanted to reinstall again at every startup. Even when I relented and let it install...it wouldn't anyway. Try this to disable the "Found New Hardware" annoyance. Got to Device Manager from My Computer and if you see a yellow exclaimation icon next to "unknown device" right click it and select disable and reboot. If you cannot see anything select View from the menu and select Show hidden devices then do the above if you see what you seek. This did the trick for me and my printer still works. Hope it is as simple for you as it was [after weeks of trying all sorts of things] for me.

Some hardware devices are actually multiple devices in one. Sound cards, modems are a couple of examples. You may not have a use for all the features available and so you don't realise they exist. No reason to install them is that case. Also, occasionally things get installed twice. One may be enabled and working and the other may not have drivers installed and may or may not have resources allocated. You can aboot into safe mode and look a device manager there. The show hidden devices is good to. Below is a small utility that MAY shed some light on this issue for you. Unknown Device Identifer http://www.zhangduo.com/udi.html

i took printer out and let windows look for drivers sorted problem but still strange as had printer for weeks thanks guys