Problems after XP Reinstall

[karennascargo3]

Dell Demensions
Windows XP
1 Gig ram

Due to a nasty virus I could not get rid of, and I messed up my system trying to get rid of it, I did a clean install of XP.

Problem #1: I am now trying to install my modem driver using the wizard, but when it gets to where I choose a com port, none are showing and the "next" button is blanked out.

According to a Microsoft article, it is because all ports are in use and I need to disable one to make room for the modem. Problem is, I can't figure out what is using them. Where can I go to check and see what is on each port and how do I disable one?

Problem #2: When I go to My Computer, it is showing 5 USB drives (???) and my 2 CD/DVD drives are showing as "J' and "I". I have disabled all the USB drives (is that ok?) and have gone into the drive manager to change one of the letters of the CD/DVD drive to the correct letter; however, the 2nd CD drive is not showing in the in the drive manager. It is a working drive and shows up in the device manager. What now?

Thank you in advance for any help!

 

[Aolish]

Dell Demensions
Windows XP
1 Gig ram

Due to a nasty virus I could not get rid of, and I messed up my system trying to get rid of it, I did a clean install of XP.

Problem #1: I am now trying to install my modem driver using the wizard, but when it gets to where I choose a com port, none are showing and the "next" button is blanked out.

According to a Microsoft article, it is because all ports are in use and I need to disable one to make room for the modem. Problem is, I can't figure out what is using them. Where can I go to check and see what is on each port and how do I disable one?

Problem #2: When I go to My Computer, it is showing 5 USB drives (???) and my 2 CD/DVD drives are showing as "J' and "I". I have disabled all the USB drives (is that ok?) and have gone into the drive manager to change one of the letters of the CD/DVD drive to the correct letter; however, the 2nd CD drive is not showing in the in the drive manager. It is a working drive and shows up in the device manager. What now?

Thank you in advance for any help!

thats pretty weird how its setup like that. I did a reinstall on my sisters dell pc. Everything went fine, the only thing i had to install was the nic by just going to the website and dling the appropriate driver. I guess its commonplace to see a pc with a weird setup like that, especially from a manufacturer like dell.

On your first problem have you tried first dling the appropriate driver then installing it first before changing your com port? You might want to try that first

On your second problem I'd say its fine to disable the 5 USB drives, if you ever need, just enable them again. About the CD/DVD drivers. I'm not exactly sure what your talking about when you say drive manager. Could you clarify? Also don't forget to install SP2 (if you don't already have it) and go to windows update and dl all the updates.

 

[alphnumeric]

You can disable any unused serial (com) ports that are part of your motherboard in your BIOS. You can disable both of them if you want and your modem add in card will still work. If they are enabled windows will assign them resources, even if they are not being used. If you have one of those flash card multi drives that is likely the source of your 5 USB drives. I would just leave it disconnected until you have windows installed. Then your other drives should end up with the drive letters you want. I personally disconnect everything I don't specifically need to install windows, before starting a clean install.

 

[karennascargo3]

To answer your questions; SP2 is installed. I cannot install the updates because I can't install the modem to get online to download the updates.

I have resolved the disk drive problems, thank you so much!

Still no success revolving the modem install issue. I have removed all non necessary devices. I don't even have a printer installed and still have no ports showing in the setup wizard.

 

[alphnumeric]

If you go to device manager your serial ports should be listed. You can then double click each one and go to the resources tab to see what resources each one is using. I can't check mine because I have both serial ports and my parallel port disabled in BIOS. Mine don't show up in device manager at all. You may be able to disable them there as well. I believe windows can handle up to 4 com ports. Com 1 and com 3 will share one IRQ and com 2 and com 4 will share another. It may be that your modem wants to setup as com 1 but that is already in use. I've seen it happen on one of my PC's running windows 98. Once I disabled the unused motherboard serial ports the modem setup worked OK.

 

[karennascargo3]

All is resolved, thank you so much! My NIC card driver was the problem. Don't know why it never occured to me to check that! :hissyfit:

 

[Cinders]

I realize that you have solved the main problem and that's great! I just wanted to wager a guess on the five USB drives. I think that those five are your memory card reader. It's probably connected to an internal USB header on the motherboard, and Windows see each type as a drive.