Desperate - no web access following PC Rebuild

feival

My Dell PC was running pretty sluggishly so I decided to rebuild it. Previously I used the inbuild Dell tool which takes about a minute to start from factory delviery state. However, this time now that I have two 160Gb hard drives I decided to reconfigure them into RAID 1 format so that one is a duplicate of the other. So far so good.

The rebuild seems to have gone well although I had to wipe the drives and lose the Dell partition. I have now reinstalled XP and Windows itself runs fine. I would now like to get onto the web and this is where it goes wrong. I use broadband to get access and my router is owrking perfectly - I am using it on my work PC right now using WLAN. However it isn't working from my own desktop - it did before the rebuild.

I have set up the internet connection as broadband but when I launch Internet Explorer I get an error message. When I go into the command prompt and type ipconfig all I get back is a message stating "Windows IP Configuration" but no IP addresses. It seems that it isn't seeing my router. When I type 192.168.0.1 into the IE address bar it doesn't return the router which it used to.

My router is a Netgear DG834G v2 running the latest firmware - and I know it is connected to the web fine right now. My desktop is connected to it using a LAN cable. I used the installation CD and it eventually tells me to go to my network places and to click on the Local Area Connection Enaled item. The problem is that I can't see that entry in My Network Places and have absolutely no idea how to get it there. I suspect this is where my problem lies but need some urgent help! I need to get this fixed by the weekend since that is when the kids are expecting to get back onto the web!!!

albertross_2

start, run, devmgmt.msc

any yellow question marks? network card installed?

feival

Yes, under Other devices all of the following have yellow question markes:

Ethernet controller (I gues it is that one?)
Multimediat audio controller
USB Device
Video Controller
Video Controller (VGA Compatiable)

Should I have a CD somewhere that has all of these things on it? I only have three Dell CDs though - one with XP, one with Sonic record now and the last with Cyberlink PowerDVD. I don't have one with the drivers I presumably need... Oh dear.

albertross_2

Possibly, if not, download the drivers from the Dell website.