My sound card ran away from home!

[-KT-]

I'm really hoping someone can help me here; I've done everything I can think of, but I think my poor computer is just too far gone to save...

I was experiencing extremely slow load times, yada yada yada, long story short, virus. So, after about 6 hours of debugging, I've deleted some 7000 infected files, some manually, some through a virus checker... There's still some contamination, but I can't get rid of it. -_-

Well, it seems that along the way, 1 of those 7000 files happened to be the one telling my computer that it had a sound card. Sound is the most important use for my computer; I've got an amp and speakers hooked up to it and everything, but I digress.  I had thought originally that it was just a problem with the drivers, so I downloaded some new ones (Creative Labs CT4780) and ran them, but the driver installation is telling me "Setup could not detect any Sound Blaster card on your system. Please make sure one is installed and run setup again."
I figured maybe I downloaded the wrong drivers, but Control Panel > Sound tells me "No Audio Device". The card is firmly plugged into the computer and has been since I started this whole gauntlet.
Well, I go to Control Panel > Add/Remove Hardware, and it won't run. Like, I double-click on the icon (or right-click > Open), the hourglass cursor shows up for just a second, then goes away, aaaand... Nothing.

I'm completely out of ideas, here. Can anyone help me?

[GX1_Man]

See if anythinmg is listed under Control Panel/SYstem for sound. If so, delete it and reboot the machine. Does this help?

If not choose add and remove hardware and tell it is looking for a sound card. THen choose Have Disk and pont to the location of the appropriate sound driver files. WHat happens now after a reboot?

Do you have a real WIndows CD to reload if needed?

[-KT-]

As for the Cntl>System, I'm pretty sure I'm not seeing anything. (But I could be blind...)
Add Hardware doesn't work. When I double click on it, it doesn't do anything. The hourglass cursor flashes, and then nothing.

For the sake of giving as much info as possible, I had to screw around with msconfig during the debug process, however I only altered the 'services' and 'startup' sections.

I don't have a real Windows CD. However, a system restore was taken before most of the files were deleted, so if absolutely necessary, I can run that. (Although I really don't want to, since it was taken like... An hour into the 6-hour process.)

[GX1_Man]

You may be too FUBAR'ed to resolve it any other way. It would certainly be quicker.    

[ale52]

As a last resort, pull the soundcard from the computer & reboot without it.  Then power it down, reinsert the card & reboot again.  It might see it.  Also, if it doesn't, power down, put the card in a different slot and reboot.  

Alan <><  

[Fed]

I had to screw around with msconfig during the debug process, however I only altered the 'services' and 'startup' sections.

Could you have disabled Plug & Play in Services?