XP has lost COM Ports

[thepoeticknight]

My XP Home Edition has no COM ports listed under Device
Manager and even when I set devices up to use COM 1,2,3 or
4 (like a modem for instance) nothing happens. I get an
error message that varies on my modem from "no dial tone"
(which there is; VM and CW accounted for) to "hardware
failure" although diagnostics in XP says everything is
working and its query of the modem is OK. I went to Ports
in Device Manager to see if a COM port can be added, but I
don't see how to do it. Can anyone help?

 

[D.Currie]

My XP Home Edition has no COM ports listed under Device
Manager and even when I set devices up to use COM 1,2,3 or
4 (like a modem for instance) nothing happens. I get an
error message that varies on my modem from "no dial tone"
(which there is; VM and CW accounted for) to "hardware
failure" although diagnostics in XP says everything is
working and its query of the modem is OK. I went to Ports
in Device Manager to see if a COM port can be added, but I
don't see how to do it. Can anyone help?

The ports normally listed in the device manager are the physical ports on
the motherboard, if they exist and if they are enabled. The port your modem
uses should NOT be listed under ports. So that's not the problem.

It could be that the modem is dying. They seems to have a pretty short life,
compared to other components.