What not to do to your parent's PC (Help me!)

[The Phoenix]

Okay, so I made a few dumb mistakes with my mom's PC. The thing is a Compaq Presario 7000 with Windows ME, and it was falling apart inside. All kinds of stupid errors, and IE crashing and such. So, I figured: "No problem, jsut format the HD and reinstall." However, they didn't have an ME disk, but a friend had a Win 98 SE disk, so I used that.

Mistake one: Installing an older OS on the dumb thing.

Mistake two: Not checking to see if they kept the driver CDs BEFORE formating...

After a LONG time, and LOTS of trouble, I got the dang OS installed, and the computer up-and-runing...sorta... The Sound card, Vid card, Modem, USB ports, etc had no dirvers. And there were no CDs to be found... So, again, after much trouble, I got the Vid card, Modem, and a few other things working.

However, here's my problem: I don't know what kind of sound card I have in there. It may be an old ESS thing, but I'm not sure. Secondly, I can't get the USB ports to work. I've checked all kinds of driver sites and such, but none of the downloads I have gotten have helped. Am I missing something, or what?

So, can anyone help me here? I need to find the type of sound card and get drivers for it, as well as get the USB ports to work.

Thanks gentlemen!

[DiGiTaIErRoR]

Well, driverguide.com has quite an extensive library of drivers.

You may want to look up the motherboard and then get the drivers for it.

If not, Win Xp has an extensive driver library, and generic drivers for quite a few devices.

[extant solution]

if you are not much of a hardware person to read the main chip no. on the sound board and find drivers
then install winxp best thin to do

[Lightning]

HP/Compaq should have the drivers

[The Phoenix]

Thanks guys! Got a little more headway. Just need the sound card fixed now...