My laptop has NO SOUND

[bp]

After rebooting, my laptop has no sound.
The little speaker-like icon at the bottom-right corner of the screen is not
there,
I am talking about the one we control the volume up or down etc.

Windows comes up, but without the little intro music.
When I attempt to play any wav or mp3 file, I get
Bad DirectSound driver, Please install proper drivers or select another
device in configuration. Error Code 80070057

I went under device manager and uninsgtalled all sound video and game
controllers, and let it reboot, nothing. I downloaded and installed
sp200028.exe
from the manufacturer(hp), still nothing.

When the machine comes up, windows immediately tells me Found Unknown
Device, and attempts to install it, to no avail, as it doesnt find any
drivers.

But the drivers are there, I know the service is started, I just have a
feeling
the hardware does not recognize the sound card anymore...

Any ideas?

XP Home Edition, sp2

 

[bp]

Let me add, if I go to Control Panel and double click the sound icon,
when I get to Sounds and Audio Devices Properties, it tells me
No Audio Device

 

[Dytrog]

if you upgraded your WMP or other player uninstall them. just a guess.