re: #497 MandyManners

Welll, this is fucked. I disconnected the printer and rebooted and got a black screen that told me to select boot device PM-ST3120215AS or PS-ATAPI DVD A DH 16A3L. I chose the former. I tried to print a document using Print option under the Office icon. No printer available. Then, “Microsoft Word has stopped working.” Then, it restarted. I tried to print using the Printer icon. Then, “MicroSoft Office Word has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notifyyou if a solution is available”.

The Kid has a dentist appointment in 90 minutes so I gotta’ get a shower. bbiab

I’m suspecting your system has hardware problems. Either that, or a nasty virus, but it seems more likely the motherboard and or the hard drive are starting to go.
Or maybe something got installed or uninstalled and broke something else. I’ve seen Windows Updates cause Word to crash because of some obsolete add-on we didn’t know we had.

It should automatically boot; if not, it means either the BIOS NVR (non-volatile RAM) is going or the disk didn’t respond to the first boot request. Could be the hard drive (bad, because you can lose data), or the motherboard (not good but your data is probably safe) or even a disk drive cable.

If it were my system, I’d get data backed up FAST, and then first get another drive and copy everything to it. Then work on fixing the new drive.
Or just get a new drive and reinstall (you do have all the original installation CDs? I’m probably one of the few who actually do)

Or at least back up data to a USB thumb drive if it will fit, and try removing and reinstalling the printer software.

If you can’t wait, did you remove (go to printers, delete the printer) and re-install the printer? If its driver got corrupted, it could crash Word when it goes to get printer information.