Installed toshiba W7 audio driver = complete driver failure

So i installed W7 on my Toshiba Portege M700 a while back and i finally got around to installing all the drivers. Toshiba has a long list of W7 drivers for both x64 and x86 available for download on their website. I got bored of installing all those drivers and i just kinda reached an "eh, i'll take care of the rest later" point with the few drivers remaining. Today I noticed some crackling/popping in the speakers and remembered that other users had complained of this before and it was due to an old version of the Realtek HD audio driver. Lo and behold, that was one the few i hadn't installed yet. I found the correct driver on the toshiba website, Realtek HD audio driver for Windows 7 32/64 bit, and installed it without issue. It asked me to reboot and i complied.

when the computer restarted I was shocked to see that there was complete hardware failure. Touchscreen stopped responding, tablet buttons stopped responding, Aero was not displayed (no video driver), drivers for my battery were gone (no power scheme settings), PCI memory controller-gone, Mass Storage controller-gone, wireless driver-gone, malfunctions on every piece of hardware on the machine.

What's worse is that system restore is not available: A Volume Shadow Copy Service compenent encountered an unexpected error. Check the Application event log for more information. (0x80042302).
And the System Protection tab of the System Properties dialog does not display any hard drives under the "available devices" tab. It just continually searches. i've performed multiple reboots hoping a miracle would happen but the problem persists.

What the crap is going on?? I just wanted to install a sound driver, a very simple process! Can anyone help? I'm supposed to use this thing at school on monday...

Do a manual reboot/tap F8 key/try the options listed. If that still doesn't work, load the install dvd and use the repair tools if they are on it. - or take a couple hours off your life and reformat the HD - this time install the correct drivers.

Hi, This will probably seem a bit on the simplistic side, but I can say that I installed a Creative Titanium while I had the beta installed and it is thoroughly excellent. It can handle up to 7.1 audio, though I"m using 5.1 with the optional port in use for the audio form a Comcast Digital HD box. It even has a Toslink port but the outlet on the Comcast is dead. Even with 2 channel input it can create a very good imitation of 5.1. I can say for sure that if you try one of those you'll be happy with it.

yeah i F8'd into system repair and did a system restore that way. Would be interesting to know what caused all that though