XP says I have no audio device installed.

I am running an Intel Pentium III with XP Professional and 768 Mb RAM. For about a year everything has been running fine. This morning I came into work, and XP has lost my audio device information. XP says I have no audio device installed.

I am using a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy Gamer soundcard. I reloaded the drivers from the original CD. XP seemed to complete the installation process, but generated an error message, "Access is denied." No audio device was installed.

I went to the Soundblaster website and downloaded the newest drivers. XP found new hardware and began to load the drivers. But, again, generated the "Access is denied." error message. No audio device was installed.

I called Soundblaster tech support directly. They told me Microsoft had created a fix, and referred me to Article 810509 on the Knowledge Base on the website. I read that article and downloaded the pnpreg.exe file. I ran the file with the -l option as the article instructed.

When I ran the file, it did not fix my XP registry. Instead I got the error message containing the lines the file tried to re-write with the statement "failed error 234" after each line. I searched the Microsoft database for a reference to this error, but found nothing that was helpful.

What can I do now? Still no audio device installed on the computer, and my frustration level has risen substantially. Feel free to email me at: chinookb@bossig.com

Thanks for your help in advance.

Rick