Just spoke to the Dell techie.

He's the same one that installed the sound card.

Although he will be here by the end of the week, he still insists that it's a software problem and he's going to bring his own hard drive to prove it (that's not the way he phrased it, but that's the way I took it)....

That got me thinking. When I installed the software for the sound card, did it go to the 2nd hard drive? Does anything I install from here on out go on the second hard drive automatically?

How can I check that? And correct it?

All drivers and most any automatic installs will go to C:

You really have to "go out of your way" to "custom" install to other partitions/drives.

I have sound now.

It's running off of the integrated sound, not the sound card.

I still need to back everything up and reinstall if I want to use the sound card.

I will do that at one point or another, but I'm so happy to have sound back that I'm in no hurry ...

Any tutorials on how to back up everything on your system?

Copy the user specific, not system common, files from;

C:\Documents and Settings\%_%_Users_name_%_%\Desktop

C:\Documents and Settings\%_%_Users_name_%_%\Cookies (if the user wants them)

C:\Documents and Settings\%_%_Users_name_%_%\Favorites (if the user wants them)

C:\Documents and Settings\%_%_Users_name_%_%\My Documents

C:\Documents and Settings\%_%_Users_name_%_%\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{445BA***************************} \Microsoft\Outlook Express (*user*.dbx files if using MS Outlook Express)

C:\Documents and Settings\%_%_Users_name_%_%\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book

C:\Documents and Settings\%_%_Users_name_%_%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook (*user*.pst files if using MS Office Outlook)

C:\Documents and Settings\%_%_Users_name_%_%\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\Themes (if applicable)

C:\Documents and Settings\%_%_Users_name_%_%\Recent (if they want it)

C:\Documents and Settings\%_%_Users_name_%_%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

C:\Documents and Settings\%_%_Users_name_%_%\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

And any personal files which ~may~ have been saved to the root directory. ( C:\ )