Hello:
If you are using LabVIEW 5.1 then you can not use NI DAQ 7.0 or later. You must use NI DAQ 6.9.x. You can download those drivers from www.ni.com/support.
The first step is to completely uninstall all NI software. It sounds like MAX and / or NI DAQ are pretty badly corrupted on your system. My recommendation is to uninstall ALL National Instruments software using "Add/Remove Programs" from the control panel. Once all NI software and drivers are gone (including LV, etc) then edit your registry by going to "Start >> Run" and typing in "regedit" and pressing "OK." You want to delete the following two folders:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/National Instruments
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/SOFTWARE/National Instruments
After deleting those registry keys, de
lete the C:\Program Files\National Instruments directory. Now finally shut down your PC and remove all NI hardware. Restart the computer and install LabVIEW. Once LabVIEW (and all other application development environments such as VB, CVI, MStudio, etc) is/are installed, then install NI-DAQ 6.9.x from our website. Ensure you follow the installation instructions and download the LV 5.1 installation component and unzip that before starting the DAQ installer (it is all in the installation instructions for NI DAQ)...
That should clean up you system and install LV and DAQ correctly. Now shut down the PC and put your hardware back in. Reboot and open up MAX. All should be good there and you can go find the examples / palettes in LV.
Good Luck!
Sincerely,
Brooks B
Applications Engineer
National Instruments