Compaq Presario 5447 refurbishing

A young friend has been gifted with the 5447 by her mother. It was so
badly locked up that a complete fdisk, format and reinstallation of
win 98se had to be done. Now, with the driver updates from their web
site, I have been able to reinstall all but the modum. The sound card
had been damaged and replaced with a Creative Sound Blaster at the
time that the CD Burner was replaced. The new driver installed with no
problem. I have been advised by a local computer tech. that there is
no way to install the modem without obtaining the restoration disks to
return the computer to factory fresh! and that the sound card will
have to be removed until after the modem is installed. I am finding
this hard to believe and would appreciate any words of wisdom.

Thanks

The Geekling