Well, based on what you said about the missing driver, I'm fairly convinced this is a DB issue. However, I suspect it has to do with your MySQL setup rather than the DB itself. First off, let's try the easiest possible solution: did you reboot after installing MySQL & the drivers? I had to do this upon installing to get it working right.
If that doesn't help, then I'd say it is related to MySQL itself. In which case, uninstall MySQL & re-install it again, now that you have the proper drivers installed. Now before uninstalling MySQL, you should first drop your database through mysql.exe, then stop the service from running. Do that by right-clicking the winmysqladmin.exe icon in the taskbar (if it's not there, start up winmysqladmin.exe, let it minimize, then right-click), & telling it to stop the service. Now it's safe to uninstall MySQL. Once done, go to your C:\Windows\ directory & delete the my.ini file. Also check if there's a my.cnf file in your C:\ (root) directory; if so, delete that too. Reboot.
Re-install MySQL & reboot again. Once done staring at the Windows bootup logo again, start up winmysqladmin.exe if it hasn't already & enter in the same user name & password you used in your db.ini file.
Just to eliminate the possibility that there's something wrong with your DB itself, I've posted my complete initial DB to my FTP (I'll be taking this down in a few days, so get it while it's there). You can download it (1.46 MB) from this
link. To use this, drop your old database, create a new one, & source this in. Afterwards, you can source in your character data backup if you have one. Now, this is precisely what I'm running on my setup, so I know for a fact it works very well.
If all of this doesn't solve your problems, then I'm afraid someone else with more technical expertise in this department is going to have to help you, because that's the best I can think of at the moment.
