X-Fi Elite Pro recognised then lost on reboot.
I have an X-Fi Elite Pro with an ongoing problem, installed on an Asus P5N-E SLI mobo/Intel Core Duo 6700 processor (2.66 GHz) running Vista Business with all current updates.
The X-Fi was working fine since new (Sept 2006) until November 2010 when I had a big set of computer problems (RAID arrays died, USB board went down, X-Fi became unrecognised).
Most problems were down to SATA cables and Power Supply. All now replaced & most issues rectified.
But I had concluded the X-Fi had somehow died.
Since all else was OK, I had one last try at putting back the X-Fi card back in.
It was unrecognised, but I had uninstalled all Creative software during the big fix.
So, I ran "Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi series driver 2.18.0013-SBXF_PCDRV_LB_2_18_0013.exe", that I had downloaded from the Creative site in Feb 2011.
It recognised the X-Fi as a soundcard, and showed up properly in Device Manager!
Then spent ages downloading the full 245 MB installation suite, and installed (most?) of the suite, but didn't seem to finish properly.
It just stopped after one install - no reboot notice etc. Another issue called for a reboot, so I did that shortly after.
Vista then said the card was "unrecognised" and had been relegated back to a "Multimedia Controller".
And the items connected to the extra USB board in the slot below the X-Fi stopped working (like before).
I tried doing a "Creative Software Autoupdate", but that did nothing, as it kept saying it "found no supported products". But the above .exe had recognised it only an hour or so earlier!
One thing I
did do was re-connect the break-out box after reboot (to see if I could actually hear a Youtube vid I was trying to play). Bit hazy as to whether that was before it was "unrecognised" or not during bootup.
I've taken the X-Fi card back out to get my USB stuff back.
There MUST be some life in the X-Fi, else the above .exe wouldn't have seen it.
Any ideas what I should try?