My 'SOUND' settings does not launch!

[irlwizard]

When I go into the control panel and search for 'sound' and try to open it to change my default speakers to headset it DOES NOT OPEN! It does not even show in the Task Manager. NOTHING seems to fix it. I have tried multiple restarts and waiting a few days with the comp off and downloaded solute to see if there were any updates I needed that I was unaware of, removed all my sound drivers and got new ones from realtek and whatever else driver-detective recommended. So WHY CAN I NOT OPEN MY SOUND SETTINGS!?

HEEEEEELP!

I am using Win8 64bit and have a raid0 so I am scared of resetting the bios or clearing the cmos in an attempt to fix it. Soluto says the HDDs have 0% fragmentation on all partitions. So I don't know what the problem is seriously.

 

[WinOutreach2]

You may want to try running the System File Checker utility to see if the files for the Sound Control Panel item have become corrupt. Open an Administrative Command Prompt and enter:

sfc /scannow

The system will begin checking the core operating system files for inconsistencies or corruption, and will initiate replacing the files should corruption be found.

 

[irlwizard]

Pressed windows key typed cmd and right clicked the command prompt, open as administrator, attempted...

"sfc /scannow" and got this error message: Windows Resource Protection could not start the repair service.

When I tried
"1. sfc /scannow" it said: Not recognized as an internal or external command.

PS: Typing just sfc works and gives me a list of commands, including sfc /SCANNOW. But like I said, I get an error message when I try it.

 

[WinOutreach2]

It sounds as though more might be wrong than just the Sound Control Panel item. If you have any third party security software, you may want to attempt disabling it before running SFC. Otherwise, it may be necessary to run SFC from a Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) so that the service can be initiated from outside of the corrupted operating system.

Boot to your Windows 8 installation media, select your language when prompted, and select Repair my computer at the bottom left rather than selecting Install now from the center of the screen. Select troubleshoot from the following screen, then Advanced options, then Command Prompt. Enter sfc /scannow and press enter.

If for any reason this also fails to resolve the issue, it is also possible to force SFC to perform an offline check of the drive. Boot to WinRE again, then use diskpart to determine which drive letter is assigned to the windows partition by entering:

diskpart
list volume
exit

The Windows partition should be the largest by default, and may be labeled Windows.

Then run:

sfc /scannow /offbootdir=c:\ /offwindir=c:\windows

This will force SFC to run on a specific set of operating system files and to perform the operation offline, with the operating system not running.

As you have discovered, Tom’s Hardware automatically puts numbers in front of commands when the CODE tag is specified. These commands should be entered exactly as seen without the preceding numbers which show up when you attempt to copy them.

 

[irlwizard]

it may be necessary to run SFC from a Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) so that the service can be initiated from outside of the corrupted operating system.

Boot to your Windows 8 Pro installation media, select your language when prompted, and select Repair my computer at the bottom left rather than selecting Install now from the center of the screen. Select troubleshoot from the following screen, then Advanced options, then Command Prompt. Enter sfc /scannow and press enter.

If for any reason this also fails to resolve the issue, it is also possible to force SFC to perform an offline check of the drive. Boot to WinRE again, then use diskpart to determine which drive letter is assigned to the windows partition by entering:

diskpart
list volume
exit

The Windows partition should be the largest by default, and may be labeled Windows.

Then run:

sfc /scannow /offbootdir=c:\ /offwindir=c:\windows

This will force SFC to run on a specific set of operating system files and to perform the operation offline, with the operating system not running.

As you have discovered, Tom’s Hardware automatically puts numbers in front of commands when the CODE tag is specified. These commands should be entered exactly as seen without the preceding numbers which show up when you attempt to copy them.

Non of that worked. Sorry for the late reply I could not find the windows 64bit disk. It is a genuine UK version of Win8 Pro 64bit from Microsoft Dreamspark. But I got the same error message as when I tried those commands in windows command prompt (running as admin). Is there a way to just run a full repair without losing my installed programs? I have a big steam library installed and re-downloading everything would suck.

Edit: I ran a scan with Malwarebytes Pro and no viruses showed up.

 

[irlwizard]

I just went into Computer Management and checked Disk Management under storage.
System Reserved 350 MB NTFS
Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition) has an unallocated letter. Is this normal? Should I allocate a letter?
C Drive says...
256GB NTFS
Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)

So windows is obviously on C with programs.
The rest is a large D drive for entertainment such as movies pictures and games.

Keep in mind I have raid0 two 1TB and both Solute and Defraggler show no defragmentation.

 

[WinOutreach2]

You can create recovery media fairly easily in Windows 8. The process is outlined here by Windows Support. In short, search for Create a recovery drive from the start screen, select the result under Settings. If your system came with a factory recovery partition, it can be included on the recovery drive by checking the box for Copy the recovery partition from the PC to the recovery drive. A recovery drive can be made for either USB or optical media. From this recovery media you can run the commands I detailed above. It is necessary that they be run from outside the operating system as the files are both in active use and protected.

Unfortunately, there is no way to reset or refresh your PC and keep your applications intact. The built in reset and refresh features both wipe installed applications.

 

[WinOutreach2]

No, the system partition should not have a drive letter. More information on the partition layout of Windows is outlined here on TechNet.