volume icon won't appear in taskbar no matter what I do

Today all of a sudden I noticed that my volume icon wasn't in its normal place next to clock.

I went into control panel/sounds and audio devices/ and attempted to tick the box next to "Place volume icon in taskbar", but an error popped up saying: WINDOWS CANNOT DISPLAY THE VOLUME CONTROL ON THE TASKBAR BECAUSE THE VOLUME CONTROL PROGRAM HAS NOT BEEN INSTALLED. TO INSTALL IT USE ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS IN CONTROL PANEL

To try and fix this I uninstalled and re-installed my audio driver (SigmaTel Audio), but the message remained.

Then I booted my XP installation cd, clicked install XP and choose to repair the existing version. Everything contiued like normal install without a format.

When XP loaded the icon still wont appear and it gives me the same error

Somebody please help

 

Are you sure that your soundcard still works? If it's an add-on sound card, try installing it on another computer. If it's an on-board sound card, make sure that it hasn't been disabled in the bios. Finally, if you remove it from Windows via the hardware manager and reboot the computer, does Windows recognize that new hardware has been detected? This will help determine whether the issue is hardware or software related.

 

The soundcard is built-in to the intel mobo
When I un-installed the drivers, and was re-installing them, it did detect some new hardware, which was successfully installed.

I'm not too sure how I could check this through the bios as mentoined

 

When you first power on your computer, you should see some text that tells you which keys to press to enter setup. Usually it's F1, but it varies depending on the computer (for example, on HP computers it's usually F10). You need to press this key right after you turn on your computer and you'll enter the BIOS. Inside the BIOS, you'll probably have the option to disable the audio (useful if you add a separate sound card).

With that being said, it doesn't sound like this is your problem. If it was disabled in your BIOS, then Windows wouldn't have seen new hardware when you uninstalled it. Where are you getting the driver for the sigmatel sound card?

You might try getting a driver from another place.
http://members.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php?driverid=210023

Finally, make sure that your audio has your sigmatel sound card setup as the default device. You can perform this from within the Sound and Audio Devices Properties window. Then go to the Audio tab and make sure that sigmatel is selected under Sound playback as the Default device.

 

I failed to ask if your sound works, even though your sound icon doesn't display in the system tray. If your sound works, then forget about installing a new driver, as that's not the problem. The problem relates to Windows. Here's a solution that I found at another site.

RESOLUTION
To resolve this issue, extract a new copy of Sndvol32.exe from the Windows XP compact disc to the system_root\System32 folder on your computer's hard disk. To do this, follow these steps: 1. Insert the Windows XP CD-ROM into your computer's CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive. Press and hold down the SHIFT key as you insert the CD-ROM to prevent it from starting automatically.
2. Click Start, and then click Run.
3. In the Open box, type cmd, and then click OK.
4. Type the following lines at the command prompt, pressing ENTER after each line, where CD-ROM drive is the drive letter of the computer's CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive that contains the Windows XP CD-ROM, and system_root is the path and folder name where the Windows system files are located (generally C:\Windows):
CD-ROM drive:
cd i386
expand sndvol32.ex_ system_root\system32\sndvol32.exe


Note that there is a space between "ex_" and "system_root" in this command.

For example, if your computer's CD-ROM drive is drive E, and the folder that contains the Windows system files is C:\Windows, type the following lines at the command prompt (pressing ENTER after each line):
e:
cd i386
expand sndvol32.ex_ c:\windows\system32\sndvol32.exe
5. Type exit to quit the command prompt.
6. Verify that you can start Volume Control and that the Volume icon is displayed in the notification area (if you selected this option).

 

Thanks man
YOU ROCK
I tried what you said in the second post and it worked, I can now see the icon and use it to change the volume.

It may have seemed like a retarted issue but it was really irritating for me to have keep navigating through windows each time I wanted to change the volume, which I do quite often.

Thanks again for helping me out