HELP! Modem COM Port Not Available

[Mark]

I have a Toshiba satellite pro A10 with Windows XP SP1 installed. The
laptop appears to have a modem port and the pcmcia card controller is
installed and the TOSHIBA software modem AMR is installed under 'Phone
and Modem Options' but under 'attached to' it says 'Not present'.
When I try to install a new modem there are no available ports to use
and under communications port in device manager there appears to be no
COM ports installed. I was under the impression that most computers
have at least 2 COM ports installed. My question is, how to get the
modem working? is it a Modem problem? A COM port problem? Or some
other hardware problem?

Any Suggestions/Advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

 

[Chuck]

This can get messy! There may be an internal modem present and not working.
This might account for the presence of a modem driver. This is usually
evidenced by the presence of a phone line connector somewhere on the Laptop.
The laptop BIOS may have the serial port disabled. Finally, some of the
Toshiba laptops had serious problems with AOL and modems. It took a call to
Toshiba (for a fee) to get the correct patch on out of warrenty laptops. I'd
see if the Toshiba web site has any information concerning your problem
before I did anything else.