Vista - Volume notification gone?

My friend tried to "fix" my laptop to make it run faster, and somehow the volume notification is missing. I have an Inspiron 1525 notebook running Vista Home Premium 32bit, and the volume is controlled by a touchpad at the upper right side, by the keyboard. Previously when I adjusted the volume, it would pull up a bar at the top left side of the screen showing how high the volume was and whether it was on or off. However, now it is gone. I reinstalled the audio driver off the Dell site but it didn't fix anything; also, I put the volume control into the notifications area of the toolbar and it didn't fix anything. So long story short: my question is, how to I get the top-left-of-the-screen notification back?

I am dealing with the same issue as well. It had been a while since I had done any scanning. After running a couple scans my Volume Mixer control is no longer found as well as not having the Icon for it up by the clock.

Any help would be greatly appreciated by both of us Im sure!


***EDIT***

Hey man go to this link!!! As Well as anyone else who runs into this issue.

http://www.vista4beginners.com/Volume-Mixer-icon-on-taskbar