First time reinstalling windows driver problems

someone give me there old xp laptop when they got a new one.It was'nt working so i decided to reinstall xp.(my first time!!!) It all went well but now i'm having problems getting on the net to install the drivers.I using a lead from my moden into the back of the laptop but still cant connect.Any ideas what i'm doing wrong??Also I was wondering if I cant connect to the net can I download the drivers onto a usb stick from the dell website using another computer?? its a bell inspirion 5160 Also how many drivers do I have to install? Is it all the ones on the dell website for this model Thanks so much for the help

Hi

chances are you havent got the network card drives loaded, go into device manager and see what has a yellow mark next to it.

then use another PC to download the missing drivers onto a USB stick and then copy them to the laptop.

as for how many just the ones you need, such as sound video, network and the chipset drivers.