internal microphone in laptop - not being recognized
I had a similar issue of not being able to see the microphone on control pannel -> sound -> recording devices.
I tried several things like trying to update drivers etc to get the laptop see the mic. Later on the link above I noticed a trick(the last one there) that by right clicking on that window we can see all disabled devices. Wow! That trick saved me from reinstalling the whole system, because I was about to do so. Now I enabled the mic and things seem to work great. BTW, I don't know how on earth that mic got disabled in the first place.
Thanks to "'Wildwing'' for the tip.