dannable:
What I have done before to test it is open the Arduino software without the board connected, go to Tools/Serial port and make a note of what ports are there. Then when connect the board I get a new port appear and that is the one I select. Unfortunately I believe that this process doesn't always work, depending on the operating system, etc! But it does for me.Com1 doesn't sound right, but there again it could be.
Why com1 doesn't sound right? should it be only COM? In my notebook the one option is COM3 =/