Headphones not being detected

I just bought a GE earbud/microphone headset. There were two plugs, one for the microphone and one for the headset. The microphone works perfectly, but for whatever reason I can't hear anything in the earbud. When I go to Playback Devices to make it the default device, it doesn't even appear in the list.

Welcome to the forums did you test the earpiece on something other than the computer to make sure it was not defective?

It works on my iPod.

EDIT: And after unplugging it to put it in my iPod and plugging it back in, neither the microphone nor the earbud works now!

Could you possibly mention the type of computer being used and the model of the GE device?

If you have front and rear plugs, one or the other might be disabled, or the plugs may be for different devices than you think.