Fix for Missing Audio Device in WinXP S

Question

My sound card disappeared from the Sounds and Audio Devices Properties panel. I tried cleansweeping and reinstalling to no effect. I could watch my card disappear from the panel as Windows went through startup after I reinstalled it. My card , a Sound Blaster Li've!, was listed under the hardware tab but the drivers were listed as "Driver installed but not started". Creative Diagnostics said I passed the hardware detection test but failed the driver tests. I am using the drivers from the Li'veDrvUni-Pack(ENG) version .0.0..
I found this fix after searching with Google. The site is www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxpt/t06642744. It resolved my problem. I did use DH Driver Cleaner Pro to remove any Creative drivers. You need to know that the hardware scan and reinstall in step 6 can take several minutes. I also removed hidden copies of my Creative devices in step 5. The revealed hidden devices have greyed icons next to them.
Sincerely,
Weasel
re: sound device errorThursday, April 2, 2005 at 6:02 amPosted by Ven <FONT size=-2>(<I> messages posted</I>)
RE>Hello to all,
I got much useful information from this topic, but none of them resolved my sound
problem. I use Windows XP SP2 on an Asus V7V8X and a Creative SB Audigy. I also tried
removing the SB card and enabling the built in VIA AC 97 without success.
Then I tried removing and adding back the Plug and Play Software Device Enumerator
as you suggested without success.
Then I went further reinstalling some of the kernel sound drivers and that resolved
the issue in my case so I describe my ste
ps.
First I suggest everyone to create a System Restore point to have something to return
in case of something goes wrong. You can boot XP to safe mode by pressing F8 at the
beginning of the Windows startup and select Safe Mode if the system doesn?t start
in normal mode and use System Restore there to go back to the working configuration.
Then try these steps only if the others mentioned here don?t help. I had everything
ok in Device Manager and every driver was running that should, compared to an other
working system, but the symptom was that there was no sound coming out from the sound
card. Everything was OK in the Device Manager, but in the Sounds and Audio Devices
Control Panel there was only the Voice recording option on the Voice tab, and the
MIDI music playback (without the sound card being in the list) on the Audio tab acti've.
The others like Voice playback, Sound playback, Sound recording and everything on
the Volume tab was grayed out.
. Create the restore point.
2. On the System Properties panel, Advanced tab, Environment Variables button, under
the User variables click New and create a variable named devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices
with the value of .
3. Open the Device Manager and select Show hidden devices from the View menu.
4. Under the Sound, video and game controllers group, find your sound card(s) and
disable it/them (don?t need to uninstall).
5. Then uninstall the following devices:
- Microsoft Kernel Audio Splitter
- Microsoft Kernel System Audio Device
- Microsoft Kernel Wave Audio Mixer
- Microsoft WINMM WDM Audio Compatibility Driver
6. Select Scan for hardware changes from the Action menu. Now the system should redetect
and reinstall the deleted devices automatically. You may get non signed driver warnings,
click continue.
7. Enable the devices you disabled in step 4. You may need to restart the computer.
The problem should be disappeared, you should be able to play sounds.
Good luck!
Ven
</PRE>

Answer 1

Hi
You should check if the microphone has not been disabled.
Go to control panel -> sound -> recording tab
There you should make a right click and should enable the both options called show hidden devices and show disabled devices.
Now you should see 2 microphone entries; one internal mic and second should belong to the external mic jack.
If you want to use the internal mic then mark it as default device.
Cheers