XP Pro set up troubles

All-

Sorry to be a newbie that joins and asks a question on the first day, but I've been going crazy for the past several days. So here goes . . .

I got all my pieces from newegg and everything went together alright. I installed XP and there were a handful of files that I had to skip over because they 'couldn't be copied.' I don't have the names with me right now, but I remember there was a 'modem.sys' and a couple other *.sys files.

But now I can't get the computer to connect to the internet or recognize any usb devices, among other things. If i click the 'Set up Network wizard' nothing will happen. I'll turn on the windows firewall (for now) and it'll have to activate the service. Then I can click and go through the wizard. But after a reboot the firewall and service are off.

I have a Core 2 Duo 3.0 Ghz Processor with a Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6. My video card is a EVGA GeForce 8800GTS. My RAM is mushkin DDR2 2 Gb. My HDD is a Western Digital SE16 500 Gb. I am trying to run XP Pro OEM, and I don't know if this OEM is causing me troubles or not.

I read on one website that faulty RAM could be my problem, another said a faulty HDD. I wanted to ask some people directly before I tried to RMA something.

I will give more details if necessary, but I felt the post was getting too long as it is. I understand if no one wants to help a new guy, but I will appreciate it if you do!

It would be most likely to be a bad RAM module. This can cause setup errors such as you describe. The various things that don't work will be a result of the missing files. If you have more than 1 module, you should try reinstalling with just one in place. I appreciate that this is a time consuming business, but it will prove a point and give you ammo for the RMA.
The OEM copy of XP is on an undamaged original CD?

Thanks for getting back to me. Yes, I am using a brand new OEM XP CD. I figured my problems did have something to do with the missing files. I considered trying to copy the missing files from another computer, but I don't really think that would solve the problem.

I will try to remove one of the RAM modules and reinstall Windows and see if that helps. This will take some time, but that's usually the case.

Thanks again,
--Nick