1. When you uninstall a program I suggest using a third party application such as
AppCleaner which will search through your HDD for any files related to the app you want uninstalled.
+Since an uninstall and reinstall didn't work I believe it would be some underlying .plist files that are the culprit here. A third party application deleter should take care of that right off the bat, no hassle. And AppCleaner is free!
2. Since that might not be an option at this point I would suggest you manually search through your Application support folder(s) (plural: meaning both
root>Library>Application Support &
User>Library>Application Support), your preference folder(s) (again, more than one, found much the same way as the above mentioned), & your cache folder(s). Delete anything having to do with GarageBand or Live (Abelton?) in particular. Important: If you don't know exactly what it is and what it does don't muck with it.
3. Use a third party preference cleaner or all around maintenance utility to identify & fix corrupted/wrong/broken/etc... .plist files, caches, etc. I use
Oynx which does a great job and is free.
4. It is worth noting that as long as your interface is M-Audio and you copy of OS X (10.4 I believe you said?) is up to date than you shouldn't need to install any extra drivers. OS X ships with M-Audio drivers so any M-Audio device should be Plug-n-Play with minimal configuration on your part.
5. What, exactly, are you planning on using GarageBand to do? There are most likely some easy alternatives if GarageBand still gives you problems.
Hope this helps a bit. I apologize if any is unclear or confused. Let me know if I can clarify anything or if anything helps. I'm an audio engineer by trade so hopefully I have something up my sleeve for you.