Unable to locate M-Audio Hardware. Make sure your hardware is connected and turned on

[ytass]

Hello all,

This is just infuriating me. I have a clean Windows XP SP3 install, and have installed the M-Audio Firewire driver 5.10.0.5058, and then installed Pro Tools M-Powered 8.0

I am using a Firewire Solo. Windows sees the Firewire Solo and can use it (can play audio file in windows media player, and can listen out of speakers connected to FW Solo).

When I launch Pro Tools, it reaches the dialog box. "Unable to locate M-Audio Hardware. Make sure your hardware is connected and turned on".
This is ridiculous. What is going on here? I have already done a fresh install.This problem arose after I installed M-Powered 8.1. I decided to uninstall Pro Tools and go back to M-Powered 8.0, but that didn't help.

Please help!

I see so many other people have problems with M-Audio hardware. It really seems a joke that the product has such terrible performance and so many problems. Come on Digidesign and M-Audio. This should be simple - I'm wasting all my time trying to get my system up and running, where as this time should be spent on MUSIC!!

Make/Model: Gigabyte P55M-UD2 Rev 1.0
Operating System: Windows XP SP3
Processor: Intel i7 860
RAM: 4 GB Corsair 1333 MHz DDR3
FireWire: On board - Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller, T.I. TSB43AB23 chip