No sound after format

[OneLove]

I recently formatted my system with no problems except that I can't get sound back. I have "On-board Sound" in the form of a VIA AC97 audio device. I installed the driver which was on a disc that came with my computer. I then went to the manufacturer's site and downloaded the driver specific to my hardware with no change. On trying to play something on Windows Media Player, I get the following message: "no audio hardware is available, or the hardware is not responding". Looking through "Sounds and Multimedia" under the audio tab, no playback devices are detected. However, when I click the "Devices" tab and then click on "Audio devices", the appropriate (AC97) device appears. Is this a driver problem?

[cpugeniusmv]

yes, it is a driver problem i'm afraid...

but how to fix it, i'm not sure if i can say

:-\

[LPDad]

1. Uninstall ALL sound drivers. (but keep the latest one you downloaded from the website handy-- you will need it for later
2. DELETE ALL of your sound components from the Device manager (delete all the entries under "sound, Video, Game devices)... yep, just right click on 'em and choose Uninstall, Remove, Delete--whatever..just get rid of em all.

3. NOW reboot your machine and your puter (gonna take a guess that you are running win98 or WinME???) will automatically reinstall all of the devices. when asked for the drivers just install the one you downloaded and saved in #1.

4. Reboot again and you should be up and running...In any case go to your sound control panel and make sure the appropriate boxes are checked and that your sound is not muted.

[LPDad]

oh and did I neglect to mention that you need to make sure your sound is enabled within your bios (if you have such a setting available) -- I doubt if you will need to do anything in the bios, but check anyway just to see if you have any options there. You can never have too much knowledge about the components of your 'puter.