[Olorin123]

I formatted my PC yesterday and reinstalled Windows XP SP-2, and it returned with no sound at all (just that annoying beep from the tower). Before I start I will just say that I'm completely computer illiterate - everything I have tried has just been following instructions from the million links I clicked from googling my problem.
Originally I went into the device manager and all of the devices seem to be working except for multimedia audio controller, which had a yellow exclamation mark beside it. I tried to update the drivers for it, but it wouldn't let me.
Next I tried finding my sound-card, which was a Soundblaster 16 (I have a MaxData pc), and I don't have a disk for it (a method lots of people suggested on other sites) so I went to the maxdata site and downloaded the driver update, but when I tried to install that it said there is "no supported product". Then I tried to manually update / install (no idea what I was doing) the sound card from the device manager, and now under the list of hardware it was next to the Multimedia Audio Controller with a yellow exclamation mark, saying "code 10". So I went to a site which told me how to get rid of code 10, and tried to re-update but now there is about 4 of the same device at the top with the yellow exclamation mark, all saying "code 12".
I've also uninstalled all drivers in safe mode and then rebooted and reinstalled, to no avail. If anyone at all could help me with a kind of "fools guide" then I would much appreciate it. This problem is very annoying!