Yeah, I'm having a similar problem... A friend of mine had me reformat his IBM Thinkpad using a XP SP2 CD, but it doesn't detect any internet connections... It detects neither the hardwire ethernet cable that is plugged into the network card and the router we have, nor does it detect any wireless connections, despite being less than 2 feet away from the router... Needless to say, I am baffled... I've even reformatted the ******* 3 times because I thought that maybe something went wrong... but... it's just kept giving me the same outcome... I don't know what to do... He is using a IBM thinkpad with 1.5 GHz processor and a gig of RAM...
But... what I mean, regarding my problem, is that when I go into the Network Connections thing, there is NOTHING showing! No wired LAN connection or Wireless connections/network cards... I don't get it! What do I do???

whoa!

xp doesn't detect dsl modems. it does not need to.

assuming you both have plugged in the dsl filters between the wall and each and every phone, and the the dsl "modem" has the dsl light on and solid:

all you have to do is plug the ethernet (not the usb cable)(do not use the usb cable at all) into the network (ethernet) port on the back of your pc and voila', instant networking.

you may have to go to network properties, tcp/ip and select

(o) obtain ip address automatically
(o) obtain dns server address automatically

there ya go!

Also if this is a reinstall of the OS and your NIC (Network Interface Card) is onboard you may need to download the NIC drivers and install.

you migh want to check device manager if u have a group that said other all those items will need theire respective drivers. i bet thats where your nic card is. id the nic there then get another computer and get the drivers from the ibm site.

On the dell the NIC is usually a wierd intel model that XP doesnt support out of the box. Get the driver from dell support and install it

This was the case on my d5150

dell also glues the "broadcom" brand nic to their motherboards, also ~not~ supported by xp; likewise must dld those from dhell.

first of all, have you tried to install those modem drivers?

with all due respect, a dsl "modem" is an external device that if used with an ethernet cable to the PC's internal network card does not require any driver - it is not a device that the operating system sees or cares about.

using the usb cable, of course, then requires the hardware detect wizard to kick off & that requires drivers. but i would avoid that like the plague... why involve the usb system with your networking?