They shoot horses don't they

I'm in total misery, If I were a horse I'd welcome the bullet, My computer(running XPpro,2005) started acting up, I decided to try the onboard system recovery drive(since I couldnt find the Boot discs), The recovery drive made everything look brand new, except the previous documents and programs were still on the HD but hidden. So the computer was pretty useless,No room to put anything new, No way to get rid of old file, I installed Active files recovery, and was able to retrieve files to a ext HD. After formatting I brought the files back,Only to find they are all missing something, Drivers,Dlls, Etc., Now once again, I have a computer with no working programs, And showing 60gb used space,, which is not correct, and my biggest problem is that I have no sound, Can Someone give me some alternative advice other than purchasing a new XP os. Ive been at this for a week, to no avail, hopefully someone knows of a site with Free OS ? am I asking for too much ?
Maybe I am,lol Any help would be more than muchly appreciated, Thank You Sincerely Musikal1, aKa Bob

 

I don't know if this will help but it was on M/G front page a couple of days ago
http://www.majorgeeks.com/ReactOS_d5736.html

 

The drivers you are missing could be found using Everest 220, and this will give you links to driver/dll downloads, with luck give you back some of the file associations.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/EVEREST_Free_Edition_d4181.html
If these were programs, however you need the program setup disks/downloads, to reinstall.

 

If your sound is ac97, on board, then going to Device manager, and click sound , videoo, and game controllers, select, and double click ac97, click uninstall driver, close Device manager, and reboot, and windows should find it in its cache, and install it. If it does not, then Everest should show the link to download the drivers from.