How to fix driver installation, error code 28

Good Day! I am working with this pc which had problems on start up. It takes 10-15mins to boot up which is really gives us headaches. I removed unnecessary start up programs on msconfig, defrag, disk cleanup, virus scan, deleted the scanned worms, and fortunately the booting problem was fixed.

However, now i'm having problems on plugging my external hard drive, i'm going to create a new back up. it seems like it doesnt recognize my device. whenever i check device manager, it shows that my device is an unknown device and doesn't install the driver. I tried to auto search or manual search for the driver but gives me the error code 28.

I tried to search for fixes, same issues but all of them doesn't work for me. And one more thing, we also have a Brother printer/scanner. The problem with that is now it can only print, and the scan option doesnt show. Already tried to reinstall the drivers , now also gives me error upon installation. I also ended up trying to use Driver Pack solution to update my drivers, now all of them gives me error on updating. It only says to try to search web for drivers.

Now I believe it has something to do with drivers installation. Can somebody help me with this problem? I'm really getting frustrated now, been working with this for 3 days. And please don't tell me to reinstall my OS bec that is the last thing that we're trying to avoid.

Just keep in mind that in the case where a PC has been positively infected by malware that the system can be messed up so badly, often due to the cleanup, that a clean install is the only viable option.
Of course we all want to avoid the clean install due to the sheer size of the project (installing and configuring Windows is the easy part) so it makes sense to try some possible fixes, but at some point you have to realize the time spent trying to patch up a system could exceed the time needed for the clean install.
Set a time budget. When you exceed the budget it is time to bite the bullet.

You might start by trying a Repair Installation:
Repair Install

Or you could start by uninstalling any programs related to the problem devices, then uninstalling the problem devices, and then scanning the Windows registry and deleting any and all keys that contain the device name. Then finding and deleting any folders related to the device. You could do the devices all at once, or one at a time.
Reboot, then run CCleaner's registry cleaner to find any stragglers you missed.
Then reboot and start installing the devices again (clean).
This is an advanced method, only for folks who are experienced working with the registry. You can really mess things up if you don't know what you are doing.


If these do not work you may be stuck with the solution that cannot be named.

Thanks for the tips. Yes we are really trying our best to avoid doing a clean install because this pc that we're trying to fix is a server on an internet cafe, which is set up on a diskless network. So we may need to set up the clients again if were going to format and that is a HUGE work apparently.

Well im going to try to fix it through registry. I'm not good on registry and values and sort of stuffs so i may need to research more about it, but i know we can back up registry files so i think it is not that risky..

And another thing, now the problem is it doesnt install or update any kind of driver. Do you think there are still malwares left? Or the removal of those malwares caused the problems on the drivers? And how about updating the BIOS? Will it help?

Probably NOT -- but you never know. Problem is, if anything goes wrong during the BIOS flash, you are left with a nonworking PC. SO, it's not something to charge into hoping that it will fix problems.

If you DO decide to go ahead with a BIOS update, just be sure that BOTH of the following are true:
1) You have a way to save off the current working BIOS to media that could be used later to restore it
2) You have a way to restore the BIOS from the saved media without having to boot into Windows.

Thank you Mark. Yes i believe there are risks on doing a BIOS update. And for just a reference about saving and restoring the working BIOS, how would i go on doing that?

The Repair Install is the next best thing to a clean install and may solve the errors if they are caused by file corruption.

I say no to BIOS upgrade. It is not related to the problems you are having, which sound very Windows related. The risk/benefit ratio is not good at all.

Also, check out this thread: I thing the Thread Starter has a similar problem to yours:
https://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-...installed.html

Okay TVeblen thanks again. First I'm going to try the fix posted on this link you gave me, and if it doesn't work I'm gonna go with the registry tinkering. And if all else fails I will do the Repair Install. I will give you an update afterwards.