windows 2000 not detecting modem!!!

[earl]

Just reinstalled widows 2000 in a friends PC, fresh install, hardware wizard will not pick up modem
keeps going thru with the (predictable) end result being can not detect modem!! keeps picking up PCI simple commnication device?? and cant find any drivers, intended to give a lot more details but are not in front of this PC from hell!
modem is pci motorola, pci has pci sound card and graphics, old model pentium, something werid is happening with hardware wizard will always start up when PC turned on waste time and find pci objects it then tells you it couldnt install
is there a simple way to install a modem on this operating system (win 2000 prof) I wonder if taking pci sound card out first would help?
also it never finds drivers for same, I thought winows would, do I have to get same off net!most are too large for floppy, cant work out how to install same from downloaded drivers, seems to give lots of stuff eg, read mes which interferes with looking/ browseing
for drivers bit, I can tell I am doing something fudamentally wrong,any advice greatfully recieve, are considering getting him a new modem with drivers and starting freash here,tend to take on things I dont know about, but this is how to learn, to all those in the northen hemisphere you are lucky the pacific isnt very "pacific @ the moment, snowing down south!! hard to type, numb fingers and all!
Cheers Earl
PS if I was a real life "Wizard" I would sue Microsoft for defamation of character, wizards work magic! this hardware wiz is not!!slightly annoyed!!

[Alfons]

The "PCI Communications Device" could be the modem. If you have the driver floppy or CD for that modem you can easily install the drivers (assuming that they exist for W2K) by having the disk inserted, then Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager. You should see the PCI Communications Device with probably a yellow mark beside it. Double click on this entry and the details on the first page or the drivers page should tell you that the drivers aren't installed or working. Click on the "Reinstall Drivers" and follow the prompts, and point to (browse) the location of the drivers for that device. If the search ends up giving you a number of candidates to choose from, choose the one for Windows 2000 that's on the disk that you inserted.

You can also go to the manufacturer's site and download the drivers for the modem, save them to some unique folder on your HD, and then go through the above steps and point to the downloaded file. Some of these downloaded files are of the .exe type and should be "run" first (either dowble click the file or use the Run Utility) before pointing to them with the installer - they're self extracting files (sort of like a Zip file) that will expand to give you all the individual files in the package and these are the ones that your system wants.

You can also try the Windows Update site for the driver search, sometime they have htem available.

[earl]

Thanks I will try these ideas,its painful as I need the modem going to update all other drivers, found 98se much easier in this respect will let yas know how it goes, have downloaded lots from driverguide.com and will burn same to disc, most dont fit floppys!!if I have no joy will get another modem for him as I will have the right drivers for same instead of hit and miss

[Alfons]

Hi earl, why not post the make & model of your modem? Someone here might have some suggestions for you.

Have you tried the modem in another computer to make sure that it works?

[earl]

I tried to install driver now on start up I get a warning (red/ grey box) modem driver or something not installed, click okay, then I proceed to modem, system devices or add remove hardware when I attempt to remove same I get the blue sceen of death / crash/ system dump,every method of removal poduces the same result is this a registry key fault? cant find where to unstall this prog not in add remove programmes, nothing shows up on task manager, modem was working on 95, also I notice I get a modem icon in systems tray? by time right hand side prior to the warning box poping up may do another install would this eradicate this propblem? nothing on PC as yet,(other than WMP, operating system and winzip} so not worried about losing data
Going to be able to do fresh installs in my sleep soon
As I can see I have a few options ! above, 2 use a reg cleaning programme and get rid of reg key for modem driver thing, use a start up utility and stop same starting
Im not that clued up re all this yet, but trial and error seems to be how to learn,

[earl]

Did fresh install, I think reg was corrupt, its annoying when "straight forward" things arent striaght forward!! put a new modem on but still was difficult, what is wrong with windows 2000 hardware wizard? as I said before I found 98se more user friendly
Now I have to get sound card going, but glad i got him back on the net, Im hoping this will be a bit less painful, any advice appreciated, are a little insecure about downloading drivers from driverguide.com as the modem one resulted in lots of " blue screens of death" and lots of attempts to remove same until reformatting and reinstalling OS I have been into PCs for a year so I seems Im on a massive learning curve!! but enjoy it all the same!!