Computer won't recognize hardware after reformat.

I've been having problems for a few weeks with slowdowns, etc, and hadn't been able to figure out the problem. I figured I'd save myself some hassle and just reformat.

Unfortunately, it's something I'd never done before and I'm afraid I vastly overrated my ability to handle it. I did successfully reformat the computer, but now I can't get it to recognize any of my hardware (monitor, graphics card, etc etc - for example, the monitor is just listed as "Generic Plug and Play" ).

I've tried "Add New Hardware", etc, in the control panel, but it says no new hardware is detected. What should I do?

Find out your motherboard model, video card (if you have one), and soundcard (if you have one). Go to each manufacturer's website and search for them. Go to the drivers download section and choose your operating system. Download all your drivers.

Once you have your drivers, go to the device manager, right click on each device with a yellow ! next to it and click 'update driver.' Point the device to the appropriate driver that you've downloaded.