The case of the Irritating PC

A few weeks ago my system crashed and after reboot I started having problems with:

1. My printers – my system crashes every time I attempt to print, whether I use my Lexmark 1250 or the office Xerox.
2. All EA games do not load because Direct X won’t load. I tried uninstalling the games but when I try to reinstall I get a message that says that Direct X is not installed, I then proceed to install the latest Direct x and the Set-up never finalize, it just disappears from screen.

The most irritating thing about all this is that I bought my laptop at an auction and it did not come with an XP install disc.

Please help!! I need your advice.
Lichaba