What caused the problem to start with?  Did you do a complete reintstall? and if you did there is a certain install sequence that must be followed (1) Install Windows (2) Install Dell Desktop System Software (3) Install intel motherboard chipset drivers (4) Install device drivers including video, sound, ethernet, etc.

If you have a SoundBlaster sound card you should not also use the Soundmax as it can conflict with the SoundBlaster.  You should disable the Integrated audio (soundmax) in the BIOS ( F2- Setup) so it will not conflict and ONLY install the SoundBlaster drivers.

The needed codecs should be installed either by Windows or by the SoundBlaster drivers.

a virus cleanup started my issues.

see here is the thing:

EVERYTHING ELSE WORKS.

and theres a lot of ELSE.

no other ! symbols in device manager - only in the audio drivers, all of them.

i really do not want to reinstall everything just to get sound.

the crazy thing is i have a dual boot machine -

i can boot off either of 2 hard drives - the other one is working perfectly, audio and all.it never had the virus

so i use it to try to see what to change in the bad one. but the audio thing has me vexed.

i really want to know this:

what installs the legacy audio driver?  is that part of the creative install or part of the windows install? that is to say, if i have no creative card, will i still have a legacy audio driver?

I'm not sure but generally "legacy" refers to the Integrated audio and in this case the SoundMax. 

Unfortunately with a Virus cleanup anything can happen and many times after it's fixed the Operating System is corrupted.

First step, I would disable the Integrated audio in the setup (BIOS).  Then boot up the system and after Windows starts, (1) Reinstall the Intel chipset drivers and then the SoundBlaster drivers.  See what that gets you. 

If you are still having problems, in Windows run  sfc /scan now (you will need the Windows XP disc) and see if it finds and fixes any Windows files.  If that still does not fix it, a Windows XP "Repair" is the next option (you boot from the Windows disc but select "Repair" rather than Install.   If you are still having problems, you will need to backup your user data and do a complete reinstall.  As you have a dual boot with a second hard drive, you can copy your user data to the second hard drive before a complete reinstall - but you should have the user data backed up on some external media anyway - never run without backups, they are not for "if" they are ever needed they are for "when" they are needed.

thanks for the good advice -

i have a question - maybe you'd know:

my sound card, the creative sb audigy 2 zs, has this obnoxious 40 meg install program that loads all kinds of garbage i do not want or need.

for example, the card has a built in game port and ieee1394 i do not want.  i just want the sound driver.

would you happen to know a generic audio driver i can use instead that isnt so bloated?  or how i can manually install just the audio driver without all the other garbage? 

i also discovered, by accident really, that there was something amiss with the windows installer so i followed the procedures at msfts website to fix that and i am going to give the sound driver another shot when my head is awake again tomorrow:)

i also ran  the sfc scan you suggested - that was a quasi adventure, but i finally got it to run after a few directory tweaks in the registry -

odd thing was it got almost to the very end of the scan, then the last 8 files or so it kept asking for the xp disk even though it was in the drive and i had to cancel out each one, but it never showed any final results or anything - it just ended and i don't know which 8 files it was stumping on.    is that what it is supposed to do?

thanks again

update:

i was finally able to fix the soundcard by doing this:

i booted into my GOOD Drive,

i used regedit to search for every occurrence of creative in the registry (there were about 100 of them)

i backed up every creative key to a separate reg file, along with all the sound drivers on the working machine.

i copied all the files on the hard drive from every creative directory on the working machine to the dead one.

then i went in to the registry of the dead machine and one by one pasted all the reg files in and rebooted - and VOILA!

i also had to change all the G drive letters to C in the pasted version because the 2 boot systems run off different letters.

what a pain.

creative REALLY sux.

took me almost a week to remove the virus and another week to get the sound back.

thanks for the help.

Thanks for the feedback and that you finally got it working.  I wouldn't have had the patience to do what you did. 

ok i celebrated too soon:)

need to pick your brains again on 2 issues:

1) the sound card drivers are all installed, exactly the same as on the working drive. there are no error messages, no exclamation marks in device manager.

the onboard card is disabled in bios so i am only using the creative audigy 2zs card.

for some odd reason nothing is seeing the sound device.  media player wont play anything, and my magicjack wont run.so im wondering - do you think reinstalling mediaplayer might solve this? or any brighter ideas?if you tell me to reinstall the chipset drivers i have to ask this -

will doing so affect my hard drive access or lettering? 2 are IDE and 2 are sata (1 is esata)

2) if i right click on my computer it shows my operating system as WINDOWS XP MEDIA CENTER 2002 SERVICE PACK 2 but if i look under add/remove programs, it is showing service pack 3 as installed .  is that normal?

it seems ok in all other ways, except the sound card.

thanks

With the sound issue, the first thing to check, if you haven't done it, is to go to the Control Panel, then to the Sound panel and make sure your Audigy sound card is set as the default device for the various sound functions. 

Again, with the virus removal, it can cause Operating System problems and that can also affect the sound.  That can be the reason for the SP2/SP3 conflict.

What caused the problem to start with? Did you do a complete reintstall? and if you did there is a certain install sequence that must be followed (1) Install Windows (2) Install Dell Desktop System Software (3) Install intel motherboard chipset drivers (4) Install device drivers including video, sound, ethernet, etc. If you have a SoundBlaster sound card you should not also use the Soundmax as it can conflict with the SoundBlaster. You should disable the Integrated audio (soundmax) in the BIOS ( F2- Setup) so it will not conflict and ONLY install the SoundBlaster drivers. The needed codecs should be installed either by Windows or by the SoundBlaster drivers.