John

I'd been playing Skyrim for weeks and was almost finished the companion's questline when suddenly the audio just cut out.

It plays in the main menu and while it's loading the game, but just before the save loads, it cuts out.

It plays in menus when the game is paused but not in the main game itself.

I've looked everywhere for a solution, tried changing settings in control panel, all my drivers are up to date and I have directx 10 installed. I also tried the update patch Bethesda released but that didn't help either.

I need to reformat my laptop and have backed up all my data. However, I'm worried about losing Microsoft Office.

My laptop didn't come with it installed, so we bought a 3-install copy of it. All of the installations have been used up, so I can't just reinstall it. Is there a way to get it off before I reformat, a way to keep it on there during the reformat, or restore it afterwards?