Help? Nvidia Graphics Card Missing After Reinstall

I am first going to state that I know little to nothing at all about computers.

Recently my alienware m15x laptop black screened before login, showing only my mouse, i tried everything I read about on how to fix it.

Finally I decided to reinstall vista completely as it would create a windows. Old folder with my stuff on it, reinstall went fine, computer kept my files and folders, but now my Nvidia graphics card seems to not work, and my system has defaulted to the "vga" card.
I can't play my games on it which was the whole point of buying that specific laptop.
I've tried doing the Nvidia setup, but it just tells me that I have no drivers that are compatible, and on top of that I have no idea what version card it is.
Before reinstalling vista the card worked fine. I've looked at other sites and i can't figure out what to do. Please help.

 

When you reinsatalled windows you lost the drivers for the card. First when you reinsalled windows did you format the disk and keep your "Old Folder" on a different disc or was it a "repair" install.

Did that NVidea card come with the machine already installed or was it purchased later?

The card is a NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT according to the specs I read. Drivers for that card can be found at this url. Since I am not sure which version of vista you have I did not give you a direct download. I assume it is 32 bit but can't be sure. http://www.nvidia.co...aspx?lang=en-us

 

It was a repair install, and the computer came with the card In it. Vista 32 bit is the system I'm on. Like I said I know very little about computers so im really hoping downloading this driver is going to fix this. Thanks for help by the way.

 

So after Downloading the driver what do I do with it? Just run it?

 

Now I am having a different problem. I've downloaded the driver and when i start it it goes through installation and then says
"Nvidia installer cannot continue
This graphics driver could not find compatible graphics hardware. "

 

It's beginning to sound like the card may be shot. Let's see what others have to say since my hardware expertise is legendary. (Not good legendary though. )

 

Ah.. Well I did notice one thing on the driver download, after I downloaded it said 280.26-desktop-win7-winvista and such and so forth, i saw a separate download of the same version named 280.26-notebook-win7-winvista-32 bit.
Do you think it might work if i download the notebook version as I don't use a desktop?

 

It can't make things worse. Have you said whether the card shows in your device manager? If so disable it, then download the drivers and save them to your desktop. Next reboot, go back to the device manager and update the drivers for the card. When it asks for a location use the ones you saved to the desktop.

 

Oh man, great news. That fixed it, and now my games are running like they were before the reinstall. Thank you so much, you're a life saver.

 

That's good news. So you used the Notebook Drivers for your Dell Laptop. Is that correct?

 

Yes.

 

Great stuff and thanks for the feedback on it, as this will be of help for anyone else with similar problems.

Nev.