First try to open up internet options from the control panel. Click on the connections tab, & then click on never dial a connection. If that doesn't work, then click on LAN settings & check automatically detect settings and uncheck the other boxes. Changing these settings might just be all that you need to do even if it thinks that the card is a modem.

If that didn't work I reccommend that you download the latest drivers if you haven't done so. Be careful to select the correct model. I'm guessing by your answer that it is a desktop. If you already have downloaded the newest drivers then try the previous drivers. Uninstall the drivers & open up device manager, right click on the entry for the device, & then click uninstall and confirm. The device should disappear. Next shut down the computer, open it up, & remove the adapter. Now boot into the computer, install the drivers, shutdown the computer, put the card back in, & reboot the computer. Hopefully it will now recognize the card correctly. If this doesn't work then try the drivers that came with the card on a CD. If you have a modem on a card then you should remove it. If you have one built into the board then try to disable it in the BIOS settings. The bios menus are different so I can't tell you how to do that. Also before you touch anything in the computer touch a metal surface on the case to discharge any static. Also do this while NOT on carpet if possible.

BTW what service pack do you have installed; you need at least SP 2. There might be a driver incompatibility if you have SP 3 so if you installed that & you still aren't able to get the drivers to work, then uninstall SP 3 & try again. If you have SP 2 installed then try installing SP 3--it just might work on it.

Getting an ethernet port to work on XP is relatively simple compared to a wireless adapter so if you can't get it to work then the card might be going bad. Also you can always try to reinstall XP. If you have a modem in your computer, then XP isn't recognizing the card & it might be dead.