BleepingComputer.com: Spilled water on laptop, now can't identify PCI device driver

Hi, my fiance's cat knocked a glass of water on the laptop. I quickly grabbed it and pulled the plug about 5-7 seconds after it happened. I took it apart and let it dry for a day, put it back together and booted for me (after some complications, but i forget what they were). I messed around a bit and i can now get into my laptop with 2 issues, 1 bigger then the other:

1. My biggest problem is when the main page loads i get a message about "installing device driver software" for the 6 PCI devices listed. I try and locate the device software and i can't load it (if anybody knows where exactly to find it I could try again, but no luck so far). This basically renders my USB portals all useless, and i can plug in my mouse and it lights up (showing it gets power), but i get a message about unknown device and can't get anything that previously worked through the USB drive to show up as an identified thing.

2. The other one is a weird one, but maybe it is a clue as to the other problem. My internet explorer has this annoying "Certificate error" on a lot of the pages i try to bring up. I tried messing with the internet options and nothing seemed to make a difference.


So any advice/comments would be much appreciated. I apologize if my issues are not articulated well, I am not very computer savvy. I look forward to any feedback/advice, thanks in advance

For Problem #2, download root certificates update from Microsoft and install it. Download from : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931125

I think your files have got corrupted during the whole accident. That is only explanation of missing drivers and missing certificates. Check to see of your documents have got corrupted too? If yes then you might need to do a repair install of Vista.

Romeo29, on Sep 24 2009, 06:09 AM, said:

Thanks. I have not had any further restrictions on the computer, and i figured out the problem #2 earlier today (the date and time were correct, but it had me in 2007, and that is why the certificates were messed up).

the problem i have now is that 2 of the USB drives are not functional and can not read anything. I was able to get a 3rd one working, and have not turned off my computer since in case i can't get it back. When i plug anything into the 2 broken USB drives it just says "USB device not recognized". Any idea of how i can fix this issue? When i plug the mouse in it seems that power is coming into it because it lights up, it just can not read the device.

You should go to Device Manager and see if USB ports are working. If they are working, disable and enable them again and see if now Windows can detect devices. As a last resort, try uninstalling the USB ports and then restarting the computer.