Alright, i'm running windows me. I was having some problems playing DVDs so reinstalled direct-x. The computer then took an age to restart and when i finally got it running again my sound card seemed to have packed up. i checked in device manager and under 'Creative AudioPCI (ES1371,ES1373) (WDM) I get this under Device status:

The NTKERN.VXD, MMDEVLDR.VXD device dloader(s) for this device could not load the device driver. (COde 2.) TO fix this, click Update Driver to update the device driver.

Well, I did that and there was no profit in it. SO i clicker 'remove' in device manager and restarted so it had to redetect the device but there was no luck with that either. I tried to download the driver again and reinstall it, still nothing. The whole episode has left me irritated and upset.