"NO ACTIVE MIXER DEVICES AVAILABLE"

Please help..I clicked on the microphone icon in the tool
bar and it closed along with the volume control meter and
never came back. I re-installed sound card and volume
meter icon re-appeared, but when i click it, "There are no
active mixer devices available"."To install mixer devices,
goto Control Panel, click Printers & other Hardware and
then click Add Hardware" appears. My problem is that I
don't have a 'printers and other hardware icon,
just "printers and faxes. I clicked on the sound & audio
device icon and "No Audio Device" appears, and the volume
bar does not light up..when i click the speech icon, it
says "could not initialize volume meter"..when i do a chek
of the sound card it says it's working properly, as well
as all of the audio devices...but i have no sound and no
volume control..please help if you can...thanks