I lost my sound and I can't get it back.

8-1-02, 02:38 AM

I recently attempted to install the "cheap" $25 win98SE update, not the upgrade, just one of those cheap $25 update disks available on eBay.

In the middle of the installation, the inevitable happened: "Unable to find file errors, then, the installation ended up aborting and I had to reinstall the original win98 from my original disk.

Then a day or so later, my on-board sound card info disappeared in the devices panel, along with the sound, and when I tried to restart the computer to have windows detect the sound card, it didn't.

I even disabled the on-board sound in the bios and tried installing a working sound card, and even another brand new card which also works. Neither was detected upon restarting windows.

Everything else works fine, except I can't get sound.

Could it be I somehow corrupted settings in windows as a result of the aborted win98SE update? Might it be neccessary to do a clean install? Ouch!

Regards,
Frank

(jj) · 8-1-02, 07:07 AM

Sounds like you may have done more harm than good by trying all those different sound cards without removing the device drivers from the old ones first.

It's possible that the onboard sound could have died, since it did work AFTER your failed upgrade.

Other than a clean install, you could go into your device manager and remove all sound devices from there. Then shutdown the system, remove Any sound card that you have installed, make sure the onboard sound is disabled and then reboot. Go in and make sure that all sound devices are gone in your device manager, then shutdown and install one of your sound cards.

Make sure you have the sound card drivers before trying this, and have them handy as well as your Win98 CD.

On reboot, if Win does not find your sound card then you'd have to do the "hardware detect" to try and find it and get the drivers installed.

If the system asks for a file that you have no idea of where it is, you can always try pointing it to your "C:\Windows\System\" directory. Many times the file is already on your system and usually the newest version as well.

Just my "For What It's Worth"

8-2-02, 02:08 AM

Hi JJ,

And thanks for your suggs. I tried all that, I just didn't want to hog the forum.

In fact, I tried slot poker too, making sure each time I removed all pertinent drivers first, and in each instance, not only did Windows NOT detect either the on board sound, but did not detect either of the good sound cards. You could imagine the time involved in abling and disabling the onboard sound in BIOS, and removing drivers, rebooting and shutting and reinstalling each card in each of the available six PCI slots..... A lot of permutations, to be sure....

I could not even get the hardware detecting option find any of the cards OR the onboard sound. I made sure the cards were good by trying them on my prevous computer and they were duly detected and worked fine.....

Man, this is a pain, to say the least. In a week or so, when I get a day or two to do so, I'll probably back up all important data on CD-R's, then I'll simply format my hard drive and reinstall w98, then upgrade to XP Pro (which I finally broke down and purchased today).

If things don't straighten out then, I'll know I somehow messed up and shorted my mother board or something, which if THAT's the case, I'll break down and get another one. The good this is that at least all the other functions work fine: Internet, email, programs, etc., albeit, without sound.....

Btw, the configuration is thus:
SOYO P4S Dragon Ultra MB
Pentium 4 1.7G
256 M PC2100 Ram
Seagate Barracude IV 80GB HD
Voodoo 3DFX 16M Video Card
W98 First Edition

Anyhow, thanks for your time, and I'll be open to any other suggs. out there.

Thank you kindly,
Frankster

(jj) · 8-2-02, 04:15 AM

If you want to reinstall your original Windows without a full reformat, you can.

If the problem is due to some of your Windows components being replaced or corrupted by the failed upgrade, then you can try this out if you want.

Grab your Win 98 CD and boot disk, boot up to the Command Prompt with CD drive support and then instead of letting Windows do it's own thing, the command prompt type in your CD drive letter.

Then type in "setup /pf" (without the quotes). This will allow you to reinstall Windows and replace any corrupt or missing/replaced files without losing any of your installed software or data.

Of course it's ALWAYS best to BACKUP before doing anything like this.

Just my "For What It's Worth"

HalfaBee · 8-2-02, 04:31 AM

Hey jj 1 of the kids games stuffed up obdc thingies any easy way to fix this without the whole install?

HalfaBee (Never having kids games again)

(jj) · 8-2-02, 07:35 AM

Hi Halfabee,

Yup, kids games are great for that, even some of the big boys games are bad that way as well.

If you are using 98/98se or ME (shudders), then you can use the same setup /pf to reinstall Winblows without losing everything. It should (should I say) replace any of the corrupted files.

You can also use the "sfc" command to check for altered files, and replace them via the install CD.

To do that, you simply go to "Start" then "Run" and type in "sfc" (without the quotes). It will search for any altered files on your system and prompt you whether to replace them or not.

Again, tis always best to BACKUP before attempting Any of these things. These are computers and they live by Murphy's law.

If you are running 2k or XP, then there are things you can do but it's best to look those up in a forum where there are people who run those OS's full time.

Just my "For What It's Worth"

RSaucier · 8-2-02, 08:45 AM

I would recommend 100% against "upgrading" a Windows OS. You're asking for trouble, IMO. By upgrading, I mean installing, say, Win98, then immediately dropping in the CD for the new OS.

You best bet is to back up your data (as you were going to) then boot from the new OS's CD. From the installer, delete and recreate the partition.*

At some point in the install process you'll be told that you're trying to install an upgrade and a qualifying product was not found. You'll also be asked if you want to search for it. Take out the XP CD, drop in your 98 CD then select your CD drive.

After it verifies, remove the 98 CD and replace the XP CD.

A bit later, you'll have a nice shiny new OS without any cruft left over from a Win98 install.

MUCH more safe in the long haul.

*Another option is to always keep a bootable Win98 Emergency Boot Disk around. You can use FDISK to drop and recreate the partition, then format it so it's bootable.

My personal favorite strategy is to then create a C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS or, better yet, C:\WIN_VER\OPTIONS (where VER is the Windows version - 98, 98se, ME , XPP, XPH). Into this directory is copied the installation directory from the CD, including the setup.exe file.

After a reboot, just run the setup from the OPTIONS directory and put the old OS CD in the drive. Read/Write is much faster AND, should you need to install some Windows component, the installation files are already in place -- no need to hunt down the CD!

After the OS is installed, make an image of your new install (if it's XP, activate it first!**). Burn the image(s) to CD and if you ever need to reinstall, it will only take a fraction of the time, you won't have to answer all the questions and it's already activated!

**If you're installing MS Office XP too, install it, activate it, then make your drive image. Many of the newer disk imagers can directly burn CDs, making it much easier.

You can also use this to build up a base of your favorite programs then make an image. Using this strategy, I can go from a fully trashed OS to clean system in about 1 hour, fully stocked with my apps. All that's left is for me to copy my data files back over (usually less than 15 minutes) and I'm fully functional again.

This process saves me about two days (~24 "real" hours) of finding and reloading apps after a reinstall -- 24 hours down to 1.5 hours.

Okay, 'nuff rambling, sorry to kill so many bytes...

Robert

8-2-02, 01:48 PM

Thanks for the short cut. I KNEW there had to be a way to do it!

All the best,
Frankster

JustJerk · 8-2-02, 01:50 PM

If you want, try this before you upgrade:

Boot windows into safe mood. (Press F8 at the beginning of boot up for a menu. Then select safe mood.)

Let windows boot. Go into device manager and check for a sound driver, if there is any, delete it and reboot. You can also check for duplicate drivers through out the whole list. I've seen problems created by this.

Good luck.
__________________

8-3-02, 01:29 AM

You suggested: "At some point in the install process you'll be told that you're trying to install an upgrade and a qualifying product was not found. You'll also be asked if you want to search for it. Take out the XP CD, drop in your 98 CD then select your CD drive."

Now, will it still work if the 98 CD is itself an Upgrade disk?

Frankster

RSaucier · 8-3-02, 08:45 AM

Yup! Should work without a hitch.

I used a Win98 on WinME upgrade. I used the WinME upgrade disc when upgrading to XPPro.

Robert

8-8-02, 08:30 AM

These are all good suggestions, especially the Back up..
But lets also consider the basic check ups. Like check your plugs. hehehehe
if you use speakers with volumes, plug it in all the whole to see if it gives you a signal.. and i'm assuming you tried all 6 slots,

Another is you may want to visit Soyos website, and update your bios, your config may have been altered, set it to default. Also your board may be hosted.

Check all the physicals as well.

good luck.

8-24-02, 08:15 PM

Just a follow-up to my initial posting. Bottom line: With all the messing around inside the box, I somehow shorted the mobo and killed the pci slots AND the onboard cmedia sound chip. Must have been a nice ESD, although I don't recall any static sounds ;-).....

Anyhow, it gets better. I swapped the Soyo P4S Dragon Ultra for a board with most of the same chips - the Shuttle AS40GT, for HALF the price of the Soyo and, after installing all the wires, drives, etc., and firing up the bad-boy, BOOM! NO Sound!! It was like the Twilight Zone. Frustrated I took the new mobo back to the dealer only to find out it was bad......

I am happy to report all is now well, Sound is restored. Soon, I will be using Real's new Helix Encoder to make audio/video files to stream from the site.

Thanks to one and all for your kind responses and suggs!!!

Best to you,
Frank Sinclair
AKA frank-s
http://vicdamone.com
http://kathysnostalgiabilia.com (soon to undergo a major renovation)

8-1-02, 02:38 AM	#1
frank-s Posts: n/a	I lost my sound and I can't get it back. I recently attempted to install the "cheap" $25 win98SE update, not the upgrade, just one of those cheap $25 update disks available on eBay. In the middle of the installation, the inevitable happened: "Unable to find file errors, then, the installation ended up aborting and I had to reinstall the original win98 from my original disk. Then a day or so later, my on-board sound card info disappeared in the devices panel, along with the sound, and when I tried to restart the computer to have windows detect the sound card, it didn't. I even disabled the on-board sound in the bios and tried installing a working sound card, and even another brand new card which also works. Neither was detected upon restarting windows. Everything else works fine, except I can't get sound. Could it be I somehow corrupted settings in windows as a result of the aborted win98SE update? Might it be neccessary to do a clean install? Ouch! Regards, Frank Last edited by frank-s : 8-1-02 at 02:46 AM.

8-1-02, 07:07 AM	#2
(jj) Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: n/a Posts: 7,279 Reputation: 202	Sounds like you may have done more harm than good by trying all those different sound cards without removing the device drivers from the old ones first. It's possible that the onboard sound could have died, since it did work AFTER your failed upgrade. Other than a clean install, you could go into your device manager and remove all sound devices from there. Then shutdown the system, remove Any sound card that you have installed, make sure the onboard sound is disabled and then reboot. Go in and make sure that all sound devices are gone in your device manager, then shutdown and install one of your sound cards. Make sure you have the sound card drivers before trying this, and have them handy as well as your Win98 CD. On reboot, if Win does not find your sound card then you'd have to do the "hardware detect" to try and find it and get the drivers installed. If the system asks for a file that you have no idea of where it is, you can always try pointing it to your "C:\Windows\System\" directory. Many times the file is already on your system and usually the newest version as well. Just my "For What It's Worth" __________________ If silence is golden, then I must be worth million$ (jj) Jack (jj)'s Playground

8-2-02, 02:08 AM	#3
frank-s Posts: n/a	Hi JJ, And thanks for your suggs. I tried all that, I just didn't want to hog the forum. In fact, I tried slot poker too, making sure each time I removed all pertinent drivers first, and in each instance, not only did Windows NOT detect either the on board sound, but did not detect either of the good sound cards. You could imagine the time involved in abling and disabling the onboard sound in BIOS, and removing drivers, rebooting and shutting and reinstalling each card in each of the available six PCI slots..... A lot of permutations, to be sure.... I could not even get the hardware detecting option find any of the cards OR the onboard sound. I made sure the cards were good by trying them on my prevous computer and they were duly detected and worked fine..... Man, this is a pain, to say the least. In a week or so, when I get a day or two to do so, I'll probably back up all important data on CD-R's, then I'll simply format my hard drive and reinstall w98, then upgrade to XP Pro (which I finally broke down and purchased today). If things don't straighten out then, I'll know I somehow messed up and shorted my mother board or something, which if THAT's the case, I'll break down and get another one. The good this is that at least all the other functions work fine: Internet, email, programs, etc., albeit, without sound..... Btw, the configuration is thus: SOYO P4S Dragon Ultra MB Pentium 4 1.7G 256 M PC2100 Ram Seagate Barracude IV 80GB HD Voodoo 3DFX 16M Video Card W98 First Edition Anyhow, thanks for your time, and I'll be open to any other suggs. out there. Thank you kindly, Frankster Last edited by frank-s : 8-2-02 at 02:13 AM.

8-2-02, 04:31 AM	#5
HalfaBee Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 7,131 Reputation: 333	Hey jj 1 of the kids games stuffed up obdc thingies any easy way to fix this without the whole install? HalfaBee (Never having kids games again) __________________ I don't suffer from laziness, I enjoy every minute! Edit your php.ini here http://members.powweb.com/member/cgi...nt/PHPplus.bml

8-2-02, 01:48 PM	#8
franksinclair Posts: n/a	Mr. Whoopie, You're a Genius! Thanks for the short cut. I KNEW there had to be a way to do it! All the best, Frankster

8-2-02, 04:15 AM	#4
(jj) Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: n/a Posts: 7,279 Reputation: 202	If you want to reinstall your original Windows without a full reformat, you can. If the problem is due to some of your Windows components being replaced or corrupted by the failed upgrade, then you can try this out if you want. Grab your Win 98 CD and boot disk, boot up to the Command Prompt with CD drive support and then instead of letting Windows do it's own thing, the command prompt type in your CD drive letter. Then type in "setup /pf" (without the quotes). This will allow you to reinstall Windows and replace any corrupt or missing/replaced files without losing any of your installed software or data. Of course it's ALWAYS best to BACKUP before doing anything like this. Just my "For What It's Worth"

8-2-02, 07:35 AM	#6
(jj) Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: n/a Posts: 7,279 Reputation: 202	Hi Halfabee, Yup, kids games are great for that, even some of the big boys games are bad that way as well. If you are using 98/98se or ME (shudders), then you can use the same setup /pf to reinstall Winblows without losing everything. It should (should I say) replace any of the corrupted files. You can also use the "sfc" command to check for altered files, and replace them via the install CD. To do that, you simply go to "Start" then "Run" and type in "sfc" (without the quotes). It will search for any altered files on your system and prompt you whether to replace them or not. Again, tis always best to BACKUP before attempting Any of these things. These are computers and they live by Murphy's law. If you are running 2k or XP, then there are things you can do but it's best to look those up in a forum where there are people who run those OS's full time. Just my "For What It's Worth"

8-2-02, 08:45 AM	#7
RSaucier Registered Idiot Join Date: May 2002 Location: Lexington, KY, USA Posts: 1,244 Reputation: 5	I would recommend 100% against "upgrading" a Windows OS. You're asking for trouble, IMO. By upgrading, I mean installing, say, Win98, then immediately dropping in the CD for the new OS. You best bet is to back up your data (as you were going to) then boot from the new OS's CD. From the installer, delete and recreate the partition.* At some point in the install process you'll be told that you're trying to install an upgrade and a qualifying product was not found. You'll also be asked if you want to search for it. Take out the XP CD, drop in your 98 CD then select your CD drive. After it verifies, remove the 98 CD and replace the XP CD. A bit later, you'll have a nice shiny new OS without any cruft left over from a Win98 install. MUCH more safe in the long haul. Another option is to always keep a bootable Win98 Emergency Boot Disk around. You can use FDISK to drop and recreate the partition, then format it so it's bootable. My personal favorite strategy is to then create a C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS or, better yet, C:\WIN_VER\OPTIONS (where VER is the Windows version - 98, 98se, ME , XPP, XPH). Into this directory is copied the installation directory from the CD, including the setup.exe file. After a reboot, just run the setup from the OPTIONS directory and put the old OS CD in the drive. Read/Write is much faster AND, should you need to install some Windows component, the installation files are already in place -- no need to hunt down the CD! After the OS is installed, make an image of your new install (if it's XP, activate it first!). Burn the image(s) to CD and if you ever need to reinstall, it will only take a fraction of the time, you won't have to answer all the questions and it's already activated! *If you're installing MS Office XP too, install it, activate it, then make your drive image. Many of the newer disk imagers can directly burn CDs, making it much easier. You can also use this to build up a base of your favorite programs then make an image. Using this strategy, I can go from a fully trashed OS to clean system in about 1 hour, fully stocked with my apps. All that's left is for me to copy my data files back over (usually less than 15 minutes) and I'm fully functional again. This process saves me about two days (~24 "real" hours) of finding and reloading apps after a reinstall -- 24 hours down to 1.5 hours. Okay, 'nuff rambling, sorry to kill so many bytes... Robert

8-2-02, 01:50 PM	#9
JustJerk Registered Jerk! :-)~ Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Bayville, Long Island Posts: 111 Reputation: 5	Ghost Driver If you want, try this before you upgrade: Boot windows into safe mood. (Press F8 at the beginning of boot up for a menu. Then select safe mood.) Let windows boot. Go into device manager and check for a sound driver, if there is any, delete it and reboot. You can also check for duplicate drivers through out the whole list. I've seen problems created by this. Good luck. __________________ __________________ Giants #1 Tailgate site! BigBlueTailgate.com

8-3-02, 01:29 AM	#10
frank-s Posts: n/a	Mr. RSaucier You suggested: "At some point in the install process you'll be told that you're trying to install an upgrade and a qualifying product was not found. You'll also be asked if you want to search for it. Take out the XP CD, drop in your 98 CD then select your CD drive." Now, will it still work if the 98 CD is itself an Upgrade disk? Frankster

8-3-02, 08:45 AM	#11
RSaucier Registered Idiot Join Date: May 2002 Location: Lexington, KY, USA Posts: 1,244 Reputation: 5	Yup! Should work without a hitch. I used a Win98 on WinME upgrade. I used the WinME upgrade disc when upgrading to XPPro. Robert

8-8-02, 08:30 AM	#12
cyrusp Posts: n/a	Frank-s These are all good suggestions, especially the Back up.. But lets also consider the basic check ups. Like check your plugs. hehehehe if you use speakers with volumes, plug it in all the whole to see if it gives you a signal.. and i'm assuming you tried all 6 slots, Another is you may want to visit Soyos website, and update your bios, your config may have been altered, set it to default. Also your board may be hosted. Check all the physicals as well. good luck.

8-24-02, 08:15 PM	#13
franksinclair Posts: n/a	It's me, Frank-s Just a follow-up to my initial posting. Bottom line: With all the messing around inside the box, I somehow shorted the mobo and killed the pci slots AND the onboard cmedia sound chip. Must have been a nice ESD, although I don't recall any static sounds ;-)..... Anyhow, it gets better. I swapped the Soyo P4S Dragon Ultra for a board with most of the same chips - the Shuttle AS40GT, for HALF the price of the Soyo and, after installing all the wires, drives, etc., and firing up the bad-boy, BOOM! NO Sound!! It was like the Twilight Zone. Frustrated I took the new mobo back to the dealer only to find out it was bad...... I am happy to report all is now well, Sound is restored. Soon, I will be using Real's new Helix Encoder to make audio/video files to stream from the site. Thanks to one and all for your kind responses and suggs!!! Best to you, Frank Sinclair AKA frank-s http://vicdamone.com http://kathysnostalgiabilia.com (soon to undergo a major renovation)

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