MySQL service not started

[urb]

I'm in over my head with this problem.

I have XAMPP and Musphere both installed on using XP. Both were working fine. For no apparent MySQL stopped running on both installations. Since they were both working and they don't share a configuration file it doesn't seem like it's a configuration problem.

In XAMPP if get the message "MySQL service not started" when trying to start MySQL for the control panel. When I try and start MySQL from the command line from either XAMPP or Nusphere I get "Cannot connect to MySQL server"

I would seem somthing has taken of the port on which MySQL is listening or something like that but I don't know how to check for that or trouble shoot this problem.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks