Anyone else with this problem? My computer is some vintage now but I upgraded to Windows 10 last week and all went well - everything working fine. So, I thought, time for a clean install and clear out the cobwebs. The only problem is that some of the drivers won't install on my nice clean install - especially my E-MU X-Board 25. No matter what I try (as administrator, in compatibility mode), nothing works. Plonked my old image back on and away we go - fine in Windows 7. Upgrade again (yes I have too much time on my hands) and it works again.
Is my only solution for a "clean" install to reinstall Windows 7 from scratch and get everything in then do the upgrade? Seems a bit of a nonsense. I would have thought that if drivers were recognised for an upgrade then all would be well for a clean install.

It may be that for the upgrade, Windows10 couldn't find the required drivers for your hardware, so used the ones from Windows7. When you did a clean install there were no drivers to use so the hardware doesn't work. Try installing the Windows7 drivers after your clean install and see if that works for you. Otherwise, yes you could do a clean install of Windows7 then put Windows10 straight over the top. At least it would only be slightly muddy then.

My Win 10 upgrade works perfectly well, I see no need to do a clean install. 
My Roland devices, that worked in Win 8.1, did not work initially in Win 10.  Even installing in a compatibility mode did not work.  I had to wait for Roland to upgrade their drives (or hack the Win 8.1 drivers). 
 
Windows upgrader (Get Windows 10) does a compatibility test of the PC hardware and software and didn't flag the Roland.  However, it appears it does not go deep into connected devices such as these. 
 
But, being Win 7 compatible does not guarantee that it will be Win 10 compatible.  Win 10, basically, is Win 8.1 improved.  I have old Office 2003 and it will not install in Win 10 even in a compatibility mode.
 
 

Have you tried uninstalling the E-MU X-Board 25 drivers and then installing the latest drivers (Win8 or Win10)??. Someone had to do this process (with a different hardware) and got it work.

An  uninstall/reinstall is the first thing I would try if the drivers just do not take with no error message. A clean install is going to remove everything, including settings, so a driver that successfully migrated is now gone. If there is no approved Win10 driver, it might be that the problem is that signature enforcement gave it a pass on the upgrade but is blocking it on the new install. You can try defeating driver signature enforcement. There are a couple of ways to to that. 
 
http://answers.microsoft....af-3bd92336d248?auth=1