Can’t get modem to work

I have covered everything mentioned in a recent Daily Drill Down covering this topic. I have an external modem which Windows will not detect. (Windows 98 will detect it when installing it.) But when testing it or trying to dial out, Windows cannotdetect the modem. I have tried different cables, and even bought a new external modem to no avail. I have checked all the software settings and everything appears OK. There are no hardware conflicts. In modem properties, it says that the modem is located on COM 2 and when I try the diagnostics on it, it can not detect it. I have used msconfig and unchecked most of the items, and retried it, No luck. How likely is it that my original & my newly purchased modem are both bad?