Problems with WinXP Pro

Alright, I'm alright with computers but not the greatest so bear with me just a little bit here.

I recently installed a hard drive on computer and installed Windows XP Pro on the machine.  So far, it's been running fine, it boots up quick, it works great...but my problem is that it doesn't recognize any of the hardware...so I don't have any sound.  I only found this out when I tried to play some music using Windows Media Player and I got an error prompt saying that no soundcard was detected.

What can I do?

Linux' sound system, or rather, lame mess of a bunch of sound systems (lol freedom), has never worked well.
We have ALSA now which is much better than OSS. I never quite understood the purpose of artsd though...