Help Me Please - E-MU 1212m installation problems

[thesilencekit]

Hello! I'm pretty new here and my name is Pat. I recently bought a new soundcard - I bought a E-MU 1212m. I had a variety of problems installing this. I now have no sound at all and am getting frustrated, as I feel like I've tried everything. Please help!

The problem:
If I open a Wav file in Windows Media Player it says "Windows Media Player cannot play the file because there is a problem with your sound device. There might not be a sound device installed on your computer, it might be in use by another program, or it might not be functioning properly."

Investigation I did:
*When I click on control panel -> sound and audio devices everything is grayed out and uneditable. If i go to the Audio tab there is "No Playback Devices" for my default device. *If I click the Volume Control I get a message saying "There are no active mixer devices available. To install mixer devices, go to Control Panel, click Printers and Other Hardware and then click Add Hardware."
*If I go to Control Panel, there is no "Printers and Other Hardware" section (and yes, I'm in Classic View).
*When I go to Device Manager and look at the Properties on both the E-MU E-DSP controller's Audio Device and Mixer Device, I have "Use audio features on this device" selected. And it says "The device is working properly."

Any ideas what could be wrong?
Do I have to set up the PatchMix DSP software as my mixer, in order for sound to work? And if so, how? I'm very new to all this...

Thanks so much for any help you can offer me!

-Pat


PS: If you want more info on the "variety of problems" I experienced while installing... Monday night, I installed the cards then tried to install the drivers/software. I experienced some problems, which I associated to the fact that I'd had an old Soundblaster live! 5.1 drivers/software installed. So, I uninstalled all that (to the best of my knowledge - using add remove programs) and reinstalled the emu software. xp then promptly crashed in the middle of updating the drivers. i rebooted to find that both my cd drives had become messed up, so i reinstalled those drivers. then, i reinstalled xp (over top of itself). then i went to device manager and removed all sound devices possible. i then reinstalled the emu software. and was left with no sound.

 

[wheelema]

Well, given that I have no experience with the Emu, you might try installing the driver software prior to installing the actual card.

 

[bigwillz24]

Yep your gonna have to use the patchmix and setup. Try the default session and see if it works. If not try adding a channel to the patchmix mixer for WAVE L/R.

Hope this helps.

 

[thesilencekit]

bigwillz24 (and all),
the thing i don't understand is... doesn't the e-dsp mixer have default settings that will allow my sound to work, out of the box? or do you have to do something within the application to get the mixer to work? do i open the default session, and save it in order for it to work? and if so, where do i save it? and do i need to make any changes? (all the volumes seem to be set at zero initially, right?) the application is the least intuitive thing i've ever seen and i've looked at all the manuals and everything and there is nothing that says "now that you've installed everything, you have to do the following configuration to get sound working on your computer" - there's no actual tutorial or instructions on setting up the mixer, which led me to believe that you should just be able to 'plug and play,' or install and get running. instead i've found it to be 'plug, replug, replug, replug, scream.'
someone on another board suggested changing my setting in the BIOS to get it to work, but they didn't mention what settings or what to change them to.
any help is very much appreciated!

thanks so much!
pat