could not install now s

Ok, I had finally got the file burned onto a DVD-R. I went through the upgrade procedure, which took several hours, only to come back to a screen that tells me that Windows had a problem booting up and I was at the Safe Mode selction screen. I tried to do a normal boot from there, but, came back to same screen. Tried Safe Mode with networking, came back with same screen. Then, I just did Safe Mode and it booted up, to a point, then, gave me the Vista background(you know, that green colored one) and it told me that there had been a problem with installation and that it was reverting back to my XP version.
I get back into my XP version and it gives me a popup that tells me that something might have been incompatible with my system and that I should check it out on a website that it gave me the url for. I went to type it in, but, I got the "Page Cannot Be Displayed" message. I look at my tray to find out that my icon for network connection has a red X on it. So, I try to figure out what is wrong, but, the only thing it tells me is that my network cable is unplugged. That cannot be right, because its always plugged in. So, I try uninstalling the network card and even go and get the drivers for it again and replace the old ones, but, nothing.
Can anyone help here, at least so I can get my network connection back up and try that website it told me to go to to check to see if there was anything in my system, which I doubt, would have caused it not to install. Thanks.