Sound card gone

[John Barnes]

This morning my Creative sound card driver expired. I downloaded a new one
from the site and uninstalled the old driver and installed the new one.
Everything went as expected except that after reboot the sound card was
gone. Device manager no longer shows it and scan for new devices fails to
find it. System restore points don't help. Any ideas on how to restore it
short of attempts at physically removing and reinstalling and hoping it
works or restoring my Ghost image. So far, for me, Vista is the most
unstable system I have ever used.

 

[Mariano Rempel]

That is not a problem of Microsoft but a Creative one.
If they don't develop full suported drivers that doesnt expire its their
problem.

 

[John Barnes]

Can now add that physically uninstalling won't help since I am using X64
with no problems with sound, so, physically it is fine. Vista just ignores
it.

 

[Kevin Spencer]

That is not a problem of Microsoft but a Creative one.

If they don't develop full suported drivers that doesnt expire its their
problem.

You are mistaken, sir. It is John's problem, and he requires a helpful
answer, as do I, since I have also installed a beta Creative driver on my
Vista system, and although I haven't gone home yet, I expect to have to deal
with it. I believe that what John was seeking was some advice from someone
who knew something about what to do, not an assignation of corporate
responsibility. At any rate, I don't care who is responsible for the
situation. I am seeking a solution to it.

Does anyone have one?

--
HTH,

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
Bit Player
http://unclechutney.blogspot.com

Where there's a Will, there's a William.

 

[DCR]

What specific Creative card do you have.
I have the X-fi and all went well installing the newest drivers.
In both Vista x86 and Vista x64 the Xi-fi is working very well.

DCR


| This morning my Creative sound card driver expired. I downloaded a new one
| from the site and uninstalled the old driver and installed the new one.
| Everything went as expected except that after reboot the sound card was
| gone. Device manager no longer shows it and scan for new devices fails to
| find it. System restore points don't help. Any ideas on how to restore it
| short of attempts at physically removing and reinstalling and hoping it
| works or restoring my Ghost image. So far, for me, Vista is the most
| unstable system I have ever used.
|
|

 

[John Barnes]

Hmmm. Windows should see the sound card in Device Manager so that a driver
can be installed.

 

[John Barnes]

Thanks. Creative is responsible for the driver. Windows is responsible to
acknowledge the existence of the sound card so a driver can be installed.
Both fail.

 

[Kevin Spencer]

I found a link on the Hardware newsgroup which has specific drivers listed
for Vista. I found a newer beta there. It may be helpful.
http://us.creative.com/support/vista/

--
HTH,

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
Bit Player
http://unclechutney.blogspot.com

Where there's a Will, there's a William.

 

[John Barnes]

I have the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro. At this point, unless I can get Vista
to see that the card exists, there is no way to install a driver (defective
or good)

 

[Michael Cecil]

This morning my Creative sound card driver expired. I downloaded a new one
from the site and uninstalled the old driver and installed the new one.
Everything went as expected except that after reboot the sound card was
gone. Device manager no longer shows it and scan for new devices fails to
find it. System restore points don't help. Any ideas on how to restore it
short of attempts at physically removing and reinstalling and hoping it
works or restoring my Ghost image. So far, for me, Vista is the most
unstable system I have ever used.

When I tried to install the new Creative drivers this morning they
wouldn't detect my Audigy 2. Wonderful. I ended up copying the extracted
driver files (run the installer, then when it warns you to close all other
running programs*, copy the crf000 folder out of \windows\temp to a safe
location) and using compatibility mode to get them to install.

Is it just my imagination or are a lot of companies just failing miserably
to get stuff out for Vista? nVidia's WHQL English drivers mucked up,
Creative's "beta" (aren't they always beta? It's not like they write some
and stop) drivers timing out (what is up with that?) and then new ones not
installing... well it just seems like a lot of companies are slacking off
and need to stand in a corner.

* This is 2007. We've had multitasking for a bajillion years. WTF is up
with a lame "close all other programs" warning at this late date. I
should be able to change drivers, while formatting a drive, playing
Crysis, and whistling Dixie at the same time, damn it!

 

[John Barnes]

I downloaded the one they listed today, this morning. That is the one I
tried to install, and on reboot, the sound card disappeared from Vista and I
am unable to get it recognised.

 

[DCR]

I should add that I did remove all the old Creative installed
things from Programs and Features and uninstalled the X-fi
from Device Manager and elected to delete the driver files
before I installed the latest Creative drivers.

Can you gone to Add New Hardware and try to add the
sound card?

DCR

|I have the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro. At this point, unless I can get Vista
| to see that the card exists, there is no way to install a driver (defective
| or good)
|
| | > What specific Creative card do you have.
| > I have the X-fi and all went well installing the newest drivers.
| > In both Vista x86 and Vista x64 the Xi-fi is working very well.
| >
| > DCR
| >
| >
| > | > | This morning my Creative sound card driver expired. I downloaded a new
| > one
| > | from the site and uninstalled the old driver and installed the new one.
| > | Everything went as expected except that after reboot the sound card was
| > | gone. Device manager no longer shows it and scan for new devices fails
| > to
| > | find it. System restore points don't help. Any ideas on how to restore
| > it
| > | short of attempts at physically removing and reinstalling and hoping it
| > | works or restoring my Ghost image. So far, for me, Vista is the most
| > | unstable system I have ever used.
| > |
| > |
| >
| >
|
|

 

[John Barnes]

I installed normally (after uninstalling the old driver), and everything
went well; at the end, the checked 'do you want to restart now' came up and
I clicked Finish and the reboot started. When the system came up, NO SOUND
CARD shows up in Vista. Cannot find it in Device Manager, rescan for new
devices, fails to find it. Uninstalled the driver and still no success.
Just plain invisible in Vista.

 

[John Barnes]

Based on a post by Michael Cecil below similar to mine, I suggest you don't
install the driver from today and would wait until they develop a working
one. If you lose the sound card, you won't be able to install a driver when
they get it fixed. At least make sure you have a full backup as System
Restore failed to help.

 

[Paul Smith]

This morning my Creative sound card driver expired. I downloaded a new
one from the site and uninstalled the old driver and installed the new
one. Everything went as expected except that after reboot the sound card
was gone. Device manager no longer shows it and scan for new devices
fails to find it. System restore points don't help. Any ideas on how to
restore it

I uninstalled all Creative software from Add/Remove Programs. Went to
device manager, uninstalled and deleted driver software from there.

Ran the setup program, no sound. Rebooted, no sound.

Went to the device manager told the "unknown device" (which was the Audigy
2) to automatically search for new drivers and its working again.

Next time I'd reboot before running the setup as well.

short of attempts at physically removing and reinstalling and hoping it
works or restoring my Ghost image. So far, for me, Vista is the most
unstable system I have ever used.

So far, for me, Vista is the most stable system I have ever used.
Creative's drivers on the other hand, rarely seem to improve.

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User.
http://www.windowsresource.net/
Get ready for Windows Vista: http://www.windowsvista.com/getready/

*Remove nospam. to reply by e-mail*

 

[John Barnes]

I will try from there. Certainly doesn't work from Device Manager with
rescan for new devices.
I did the same procedure as you did. Uninstalled and deleted the driver and
uninstalled all Creative programs from uninstall a program. Rebooted and
then installed the new driver.

 

[John Barnes]

Went to the device manager told the "unknown device" (which was the Audigy
2) to automatically search for new drivers and its working again.

I have NO unknown devices

Next time I'd reboot before running the setup as well.

I did reboot.

So far, for me, Vista is the most stable system I have ever used.
Creative's drivers on the other hand, rarely seem to improve.

XP X64 is my most stable. I am stuck at Vista64 RC1, but I have had several
programs fail to install and after the backout, the system had to be
reinstalled due to multiple problems. One time when unsigned drivers were
the stop cause, on reboot, one of the unsigned drivers was in fact installed
after the backout. After deleteing the driver, there were numerous problems
with explorer.exe that made the system unusable.

 

[Chad Harris]

John--

1) Try using Last Known Good Configuration. It's always a Hail Mary Pass (as
to its Las Vegas Odds), but it's a bit skewed toward hardware and could
work.
2) If no joy with #1 try using Startup Repair from the Vista DVD.
3) I have seen Vista's last 4-5 builds occasionally lose a driver on a
reboot. My tack there has been to reinstall the driver.

I have seen situations repeatedly now in Vista, where also System Restore
from Win RE's Startup repair works when SR's (from Safe Mode) at F8 options
does not. Since they are both based on volume shadow copies, I can't
explain why but it does happen.

Good luck,

CH

Hats off to 7 year-old East Oakland, California German Shepard "Buffy", who
is now fighting to keep her leg after being shot protecting her owner from
being robbed.

Go Buffy!

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/11/BAG8ENGVRN20.DTL
http://www.nbc11.com/news/10727509/detail.html

Hats off to Tony Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies, specializing in energy issues, the
Middle East and North Africa, defense policy, and terrorism and
transnational threats. Cordesman also serves as a national security analyst
for ABC News.

Click on highlighted portions to see Tony's analysis
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/opinion/20070111_BUSHSPEECH_GRAPHIC.html

Go Tony!
_________________________

 

[Chad Harris]

John --

When you do try from Add New's wizard, try browsing to the location of the
driver files by clicking browse and typing in the path to the sound card.
That seems to work with some drivers Vista doesn't recognize or won't
install at first for me including my old Turtle Beach driver, and my older
HP scanner driver.

CH

 

[Brian W]

I know this doesn't help, but the Creative drivers downloaded today work
fine with my Audigy 2. I installed them without removing the old ones first.
Using x86 Vista, RC2