Audacity Forum

Things were working well. Converted some large files to mp3, did some editing, etc. throughout the week. Today I recorded some stuff from a cassette player. No problems. Then suddenly, for reasons I can't figure, I cannot record. (Win XP) There is no signal getting through from ANY input device. Worse yet, I cannot record with Windows Sound Recorder for the same reason. Uninstalled & reinstalled - no change. updated all the sound drivers - no change. Worse still - Tried to do the recording on a different machine (Win98) and the exact same thing has happened. I can't think of what I could have done both times that triggered this. I am in dire need of help figuring this out. Many thanks in advance.

How is your cassette deck connected to the computer?
Do you have any USB devices attached?

Was using a portable cassette player wired from headphone jack on it to the microphone jack on the laptop, as there is no line-in. Yes I did have some USB stuff attached on the laptop - printer & mouse is all I think. The second time around on my old machine, it was wired the same way and I had only a USB mouse attached.

I'm hoping that you haven't blown up your sound cards input.
The output from a headphone socket is over 1000x higher than a microphone signal.

I'm not sure how you will be able to test this... Have a look in the Windows Control Panel in the "Sounds and Audio Devices" section and check that your sound card is correctly selected for recording and playback.

Does your sound card still play?

The sound card is still selected, and sound still works. Headphones and speakers still have sound. Just can't record.

Well if everything is set up correctly and still no input signal, then I think that you may have blown the input on your sound card (unless anyone else has any other ideas?)

That's what it looks like. I put a different sound card in my old machine, loaded the drivers and it worked great. Thanks for all the help. I do appreciate it.