No sound devices/PnP error code 31

None of my sound devices (On-board SoundMAX, PCI connected Sound Blaster 5.1,
USB connected Tascam US-122) are working at the moment. The problem
(apparently) occured after installing an automatic Windows Update.(Q329834).

All of my sound devices appear to be error free in the Device Manager,
however the Plug-and-play enumerator status shows : This device is not
working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this
device. (Code
31).

Other observations:
- In Control Panel/Sound & Multimedia, no devices are selectable in the tabs
'Sound' and 'Voice' (grey fields with 'No Device'). In the Hardware tab
however, all sound devices are listed.
-When launching Windows Media Player 9, I get error code 0xC00D11BA
-When launching Cubasis VST-486, I get the error message: 'The Tascam
interface hardware could not be found...'
-When launchnig the SoundBlaster application, I get the error message: No
sound card present.
-When running dxdiag, I get the error message: No sound card present.

After scanning several newsgroup articles, I have tried the following:
- Reinstall Plug-and-Play Software device enumerator
- Uninstall permanently the on-board sound device (both on windows and BIOS)
- Uninstall Sound Blaster and Tascam US-122 sound devices, and reinstall
one-by one, including uopgrading to latest device drivers
- Checked that the 'Windows Audio' Service has status 'Started' and
'Automatic'
- Installed the latest DirectX (9.0c)
- Tried system Restore to Date/Time before issue started, but the system is
unable to do the restoring.
- Uninstall the suspected windows update.
- Reinstall Windows XP (Repair install)

I can't help suspecting is something common to all sound devices missing or
in error
Any further advice is highly appreciated !

Is there a way to trace what goes wrong during driver loading ? Or is the only
way out to format the disk and do a clean reinstall of XP ? Could this be a
hardware problem ?

Most grateful for any hint or advice !

=?Utf-8?B?QXJuZQ==?= wrote:

None of my sound devices (On-board SoundMAX, PCI connected Sound Blaster 5.1,
USB connected Tascam US-122) are working at the moment. The problem
(apparently) occured after installing an automatic Windows Update.(Q329834).

See if you can roll back the sound card driver.

Thanks for the advice !
I have tried to rollback the drivers, but this does not fix the problem.
Regarding error code 31 in the PnP device enumerator, other PnP devices
(Graphics Card, USB connected printer) is working fine, so the problem seems
to be specific
for the 3 Sound Devices:

All sound devices OK in the Device Manager, but none visible in the Sound &
Multimedia wizard.

Are there other services than "Windows Audio" critical for operation of the
sound devices ?

"Plato" wrote:

=?Utf-8?B?QXJuZQ==?= wrote:

None of my sound devices (On-board SoundMAX, PCI connected Sound Blaster 5.1,
USB connected Tascam US-122) are working at the moment. The problem
(apparently) occured after installing an automatic Windows Update.(Q329834).

See if you can roll back the sound card driver.

To whom it might concern:
A clean reinstall (not repair) of XP did the trick ! After weeks of
debugging I tried this as a last resort. Several hours of work reinstalling
all devices and applications,
but MY SOUND IS BACK !! An extra bonus is a faster PC.

best regards

"Arne" wrote:

Thanks for the advice !
I have tried to rollback the drivers, but this does not fix the problem.
Regarding error code 31 in the PnP device enumerator, other PnP devices
(Graphics Card, USB connected printer) is working fine, so the problem seems
to be specific
for the 3 Sound Devices:

All sound devices OK in the Device Manager, but none visible in the Sound &
Multimedia wizard.

Are there other services than "Windows Audio" critical for operation of the
sound devices ?

"Plato" wrote:

=?Utf-8?B?QXJuZQ==?= wrote:

None of my sound devices (On-board SoundMAX, PCI connected Sound Blaster 5.1,
USB connected Tascam US-122) are working at the moment. The problem
(apparently) occured after installing an automatic Windows Update.(Q329834).

See if you can roll back the sound card driver.