X-Fi Titanium Fatality Pro no hardware recognized

I bought the above mentioned sound card and installed it into my PC and at boot Windows does not recognize any New Hardware.....

Im running Windows XP Home on an Msi 975 Platinum Mobo, I had to install the card in the second PCI-E 8x slot since my Video card is a dual slot and it conveniently blocks the x1 slots, but that shouldnt be a problem since the PCI-E slots are backwards compatible. I disabled the on board audio prior to starting the whole process. I did not remove the on-board (Realtek HD audio) drivers because that shouldn't stop Windows from recognizing new hardware....

I tried re-seating the card quite a few times and had no luck getting it recognized. I know its seated properly because this card has an illuminated logo which lights up when the card is seated properly and getting power so thats out of the question.

I don't have another PC to try this card in so im not really sure what to do at this point, could this card be DOA or is it possible something in BIOS is turned off?

Any and all help is appreciated, thanx.

disable onboard sound in bios