why don't you try to mount the ISO with something like virtual clone drive or daemon tools? it looks like the installer isn't working right because you just extracted and copied the files

I have a different SB Live! CD I need to upload... that is for the original Live! card, not the newer ones... so I'll get it out there if that method doesn't work

I decided to try this again. I burnt the ISO file on to a CD-R. Unfortunately, I get exactly the same result. My guess is that this ISO file is not intended for the CT4760 X-Gamer SBLive! card. I wanted to try this ISO file, because it's got more software on it than the Live!Ware 3.0 driver that can be found on DriverGuide. Although this download is 30 meg, it only has AudioHQ, and a few other bits and pieces. Not as good as what is on that ISO file!

It would be great if you could upload a SBLive! CD, please. Thanks a lot. Also, quite a while ago, I think on Vogons, someone provided a link to a guy on the net who had lots of SBLive! downloads. I very vaguelly recall he was called something like SoundBlaster Guy or Boy or something. Also, does anyone know the FTP address of Vogons user aleksej's FTP site? I think he's got some SBLive! CDs. I could fire up TotalCommander (FTP program), and see what I can download...

sending my CT4830 ISOs to wolverinedk now... so you should have it within 12 hours

Hmmm....I usually install the drivers posted above from the unzipped iso in a folder. And I have installed it on a variety of motherboards - ranging from socket 5 to socket 775 based mobos., but haven't noticed any problems so far.

But then the card I used is a Live! 5.1.

And one more thing, how "long" did you wait till you decided that it hanged? Creative drivers, usually the later Live! onwards CD based drivers can be a real pain in the..(censored)...to install. Audigy drivers are no better.

Try waiting for the "Updating Windows Drivers" to finish a bit longer... say, 5 to 8 minutes.

Thanks a lot for the ISOs! I look forward to testing them. Malik, is your card one of these CT models: 4830, 4832, 4870, SB0060? I wonder if it's an SB0060, because I think that's a 5.1 card. Also, when you use this installation ISO / CD-ROM, does it a) ask you to manually browse to the driver folder when it detects the hardware during its installation routine, and b) always install the WDM driver and never the older W95/98 VxD driver?

When I did the installation, I waited for about 3 minutes on that installation screen that I mentioned earler. I'll try again, and wait for 10!

I've just tried this installation in a different way. When I switch on power to the mobo, the desktop appears, and it "sees" the SBL card. In their documentation, Creative tell me to click cancel at this point, and use the CD-ROM instead. I've tried that, and it doesn't work, so I point the Creative installation routine's hardware wizard to the WDM drivers on the CD-ROM. That works, except that I have to do a couple of things to get this to work properly -

1) The CD-ROM drive tray won't eject, when it asks for the W98SE disk. That's frustrating. So, before all of this takes place, I have to copy some cabinet files over to my CF drive. They are .cabs files number 12, 13, 16, and 20.

2) Unfortunately, the installation routine can't "see" the file called gm16.dls inside .cab file number 13. So, before all of this takes place, I have to extract it.

That all seems to work, but I don't get a Creative Multimedia Interface device inside the Control Panel -> Device Manager area. I don't have anything attached to my SBL card. Is that the Multimedia Interface?

The next thing I try is to run the main CD-ROM setup installation routine again. And it all seems to work. During installation, it "sees" that the drivers are already loaded, and doesn't bother searching for them. The installation correctly finishes, and reboots the PC. But the Creative Multimedia Interface appears inside the Control Panel -> Device Manager area, and it has that warning next to it, which I mentioned earlier.

I wonder if this would work, if I attached something to the SBL card, to provide I/O? - such as one of those IR front bay panel things, or something similar. The only other thing I can think of is that the Creative Multimedia Interface has got something to do with "5.1", and that is why this installation is not working properly.

I tried something different. I went to this site: http://www.mdgx.com/sbdrv/ and saw a file being hosted there called SB_Live!Ware_3.0_CD_ISO+update.7z. Unfortunately, this link is odd, because when you click on it, the browser windows fills up with random characters. I searched online for this file name, and found it here, on a megaupload webpage. It is the full Live!Ware 3.0 CD, with the Creative applets. That's useful.

It works, and installs the SBL card using VxD drivers. I noticed on this msfn webpage here, that the o.p. called RetroOS says that a few of the Live!Ware 3.0 applets can be "upgraded". I'll test that soon. Also, there's a Creative update package called sblw9xup.exe. I tested this on a Live!Ware 3.0 drivers only installation, and it appeared to update nothing, but I'll double-check this...

Edit 1: I just noticed something about this full Live!Ware 3.0 installation. The Creative Multimedia Interface device installs OK.

Edit 2: Also, some of the files on this full Live!Ware 3.0 CD are older than the Live!Ware 3.0 drivers only package that is floating about on the net! Actually, it seems to be the EMU10K1.VxD file. This is older on the full CD version, compared to a newer file in the drivers only package.

Edit 3: I noticed that the "old" file called EMU10K1.VxD, which was installed from the full Live!Ware 3.0 CD was successfully upgraded when I ran the Creative upgrade package called sblw9xup.exe. This upgrade package can be very easily found on their website.

Edit 4: I ran the file called UpdDrv98.exe, found here, (also mentioned in this msfn post here), and it seemed to update many of the core drivers. I wonder why this update is not on Creative's website any more. At least, I couldn't see it.

the browser fills up with random characters because the sysadmin on that server is an idiot and didn't configure the MIME types correctly. So the server assumes it's a plain text file and sends you that file as ASCII. If you use wget, you should be able to get it as long as you force it to download in binary mode.

and don't wonder why you can't find it on creative's site anymore... you just have to accept that they suck and don't care about their loyal customers from years ago. They don't want to support their old products and they rather pretend they don't exist at all. Their despicable behavior is why the SB drivers thread exists on this forum in the first place! Unfortunately,it takes a lot of effort to maintain and gather what has been lost in order to help everyone.

Partially solved! I got the ISO CD-ROM installation file from Malik's thread to install correctly. No hardware change was made. The only change I did make was to use a fresh Windows Millennium CF installation. Now, this WDM driver based SBL ISO installation works. I don't see any Multimedia Interface device installed. Previously, using a W98SE CF installation, a "failed" Multimedia Interface device was installed. I'm still wondering if it's got anything to do with a missing I/O attachment. Or, it could be something to do with the previous W98SE installation attempt failing to prevent the installation of a VxD based Multimedia Interface device, alongside the core installed WDM drivers? Also, I think that this ISO installation seems set up for WDM driver installation only.

Anyway, using W-ME, all sound and music dxdiag tests pass OK. Also, I am wondering if this "X-Gamer" CT4760 model I am using is a 5.1 card "by default". If I look on the back of the card, there is a digital out connector, and two other output connectors - presumably one is front, and the other is rear. The installation ISO file has a 5.1 demo, see below -

These connectors are needed for 5.1 speakers. The CT4760 does have them. The CT4760 doesn't say "5.1" next to the Live! wording on the card's PCB, but it might be a 5.1 card anyway.

5.1 cabling. These 2 screenshots were taken from the SB Live! 5.1 demo, as seen in the first image at the top of this post.

Years Ago I bought a SB live! Gamer or Player? new in the shop. But somehow I could not install it with drivers including "SB16 Emulation" in Windows 98. Only plain drivers worked. I returned the card. It is a long time ago, but I remember trying everything, and concluding that the card was a crippled intentionally.

don't feel bad.... the SB Live! had such shitty drivers compared to the ISA sound blasters... my friend was an early PCI sound card adopter... he had so much trouble making his SB Live working properly... I now have his card and the drivers discs... I already sent the disc 1 (all you really need actually) to wolverinedk... not sure if he has uploaded it yet
the CT4830 has an optional I/O bracket for toslink in/out.. it didn't come with it unless you got the "gold" version... not needed to make the card work either way

the drivers disc I have is for the very bare bones SB Live! no gold, 5.1, or anything like that... it'll probably work with yours