Wireless NIC isn't recognized at all anymore - Fixed!

[Nik]

I replaced the DVD drive with the new HDD and used Norton Ghost to clone the current HDD over to the new HDD (40Gig to the new 120Gig).

Ghost had no problems, cloned over fine.

Activated Windows on first boot, but found it odd that the activation chose to use the dialup modem instead of the wireless NIC.

After activation, I checked device manager and there's no NIC listed at all. There's no unknown devices. There's not so much as a known device with a "!" warning over the icon. Same thing in safe mode, no unknown or not-properly-installed devices.

I tried switching the card to a different PCI slot, but Windows still refuses to recognize the card. It was working fine a half hour before I cloned the drives and I can't imagine that cloning a drive would fry a PCI device

Suggestions?

 

[corkyg]

Just backs up what I have always maintained - cloning with Ghost is not all that great. TrueImage 9 is the best cloner out there. I clone my HDD every week and never have to reactivate XP Pro. Ghost let some things fall through the crack.

 

[Nik]

Thank you for your intuitive and comprehensive post, clearly showing me how to fix the issue at hand. :roll:

How do I get system to recognize the NIC?

 

[mulletgut]

Re-install mobo and NIC drivers?

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: GuideBot
Thank you for your intuitive and comprehensive post, clearly showing me how to fix the issue at hand. :roll:

How do I get system to recognize the NIC?

I can't imagine how this could have anything to do with Ghost vs. TrueImage; you just copied the bits on the HDD, something they'd both do exactly the same way.

If you uninstall the device from DeviceMgr, reboot, and scan for changes, what happens?

Ah - I see there's no NIC. Boot in safe mode, then go into DM and show hidden devices. Do you see anything unusual or different that you can remove?

 

[Nik]

Originally posted by: dclive

Originally posted by: GuideBot
Thank you for your intuitive and comprehensive post, clearly showing me how to fix the issue at hand. :roll:

How do I get system to recognize the NIC?

I can't imagine how this could have anything to do with Ghost vs. TrueImage; you just copied the bits on the HDD, something they'd both do exactly the same way.

If you uninstall the device from DeviceMgr, reboot, and scan for changes, what happens?

Ah - I see there's no NIC. Boot in safe mode, then go into DM and show hidden devices. Do you see anything unusual or different that you can remove?

I checked hidden devices in safe mode as well, nothing there related to networking that I can understand. Some things I wasn't familiar with I had to look up, but everything else seems fine. This is so freakin confusing

 

[dclive]

And you've booted the machine with the NIC completely removed (or disabled in the BIOS), then rebooted with the NIC back in the machine (or enabled in the BIOS), and it still isn't seen?

 

[Nik]

Ha! Anandtech comes through again. I'll try this later tonight. Thanks for reminding me, dclive.

 

[Nik]

Originally posted by: mulletgut
Re-install mobo and NIC drivers?

Well, it's hard to reinstall NIC drivers when the system doesn't even recognize that the NIC is physically installed. As far as mobo drivers, which ones would I reinstall?

 

[Nik]

Originally posted by: dclive
And you've booted the machine with the NIC completely removed (or disabled in the BIOS), then rebooted with the NIC back in the machine (or enabled in the BIOS), and it still isn't seen?

Thanks again for the help, dclive. I just got a "Found new hardware: ethernet controller" notification.

:beer:

 

[dclive]

Glad it worked for you.