Audio Device Disabled (tried all normal approaches)

Hi there,
well a while back my system (specs below) had a windows update when I went to bed, upon my return my PC booted up with no sound avaliable. i.e. in my task tray the speaker has a red X and displays "No Speakers or Headphones are plugged in" - they are definately plugged in. I did try to use a restore point straight away and it failed telling me the restore point was corrupted (or somthing to that effect).

System:
W7 64-Bit
Asus P5K Deluxe (SoundMax Audio)
e8400
4G Crucial Ballistix DDR2
2x 320GB Samsung SATAII
HD5850

If i try to get it solved by scanning it tells me that my Audio device is disabled, whether I tell it to test the rear/front panel/or USB.

I have searched far and wide to get this issue resolved and I've seen that there is a lot of info on this, but my issue seems to be slightly different and nothing ive tried works.

If i Look under playback devices nothing is missing (Ive enabled "Show hidden"), and if i switch where my speakers are plugged in the window recognises that and displays which it is plugged into.




In Device manager there are no errors displayed, and I have tried uninstalling/updating/and disableing then re-enabling all different sound devices.



Thinking that my sound on the motherboard may have died (SounMax) I added the USB sound device to test. This device installed fine and shows it is avaliable but it will still not give any sound. The speaker icon in the task tray still tells me that no spekers etc. are plugged in and if prompted it will say "audio device is disabled".

If anyone has any ideas on new things I can try I'd greatly appreciate it, I'm about ready to completely reformat thhe whole thing.

Cheers
funk

Thanks Sardonicus, but unfortunately this is the sound that is on my motherboard and there is nothing to unplug. Ive reset the cmos etc. I think im down to my last option of a reformat to see if it fixes the issue, and if not then it must be a hardware issue. Im not convinmced it's hardware at this stage due to the independant USB sound card having the same issue.

Cheers

Well today I just installed a 2nd W7 as a dual boot and all is well.