Wrong driver installed ... how do you completely remove it?

[NivekC4]

I recently installed new drivers for my soundcard (Soundblaster Live! 5.1) on my computer (Windows XP Professional). Apparently, the system does not like the new drivers I installed because everytime I reboot/startup I get a blue screen of death stating (Hardware Malfunction and Parity error ... or something of that nature). I popped the card out, went back to onboard sound for the time being, and went and uninstalled the drivers (add/remove programs). Even without the card in the system, it seems as though the driver I installed wants to complete ... I get an error on reboot saying, "Error completeing driver installation. Reboot your system or uninstall the drivers"....but i can successfully get into windows.

To my knowledge, I removed the program that installed the driver onto my system. Is there somewhere in the registry I can go to remove this driver that is still present? It seems as though it is trying to complete the installation on start up, but I just don't know where in the registry to look to remove it. Also, until I completely remove this driver, I cannot get my Soundblaster Live! 5.1 card to work (I get blue screen).

Thanks for the help!

 

[BlueWeasel]

If you knew the filename of the driver in question, couldn't you just delete it from the \WINDOWS\ directory (or whichever subdirectory it is stored under)?

 

[Sectoid]

You can try to restore your system to a previous state, before you installed the drivers, with system restore. That is, if you haven't installed a lot of things since, or don't care.

If not, you can create a new restore point and then delete everything from you registry that relates to "creative" or "sound blaster" or anything related. You can try creative support too(everyone can at least TRY ) hehehe

I know of an app called "Driver Cleaner 2" that I use to erase video drivers sometimes. It erases creative audio drivers too. If it's not listed, reinstall and then erase with the program. Search for the name in google, or if you want I can email it to you.

Hope one of these helps!

 

[snidy1]

Creative drivers? Reformat and reinstall os.

 

[LoneWolf1]

Try Driver Cleaner. It has an option for removing Creative drivers.