Having setup a lot of these I look for the icon in the Tray (next to the time) that supports the actual synching. If you right click on it it may pop up and have options for USB or Serial, or you may need to bring up the Setup options to change them to use the USB port instead of the serial port. A Palm pilot will look for serial if you don't set it correct, same with a phone. Since your system has XP I would assume you have working USB ports, you have gone to Device Manager (under Control Panel/System) and made sure they show up, or have used other USB devices with the system? Yes, I`ve used other devices both my USB ports with no problem. The little symbol next to the time in the system tray only gives me the 'safely remove hardware' option when I select it. When I plug the cable for the phone into the USB port, the computer gives the little audio sound that says a device has been connected to the ort, so the computer knows it`s there, but it gives a question mark in the device managed, saying there`s no drivers, even though they`ve been installed correctly, and that has been aknowledged by the installation program.