My laptop that previously had windows vista on it crashed so i reformatted it with an old win xp professional disk in hopes that I could redownload my vista upgrade and reformat again. My files are intact since I had a partition on the drive but my wireless card can't find any wireless network in my home and I can't access the internet on it at all. Please help as the computer in question is my main work/school computer and I desperately need it to be able to access the internet. Ive tried plugging an ethernet cord directly into the laptop and it still can't seem to find that I have internet access either.

So if I understand things correctly, you have a Vista Upgrade DVD? This is why you loaded XP Pro from a CD?

The Vista Upgrade should install from "scratch", just asking for (proof of) a previous version of Windows during the install.

Are these parameters correct?

My Vista DVD is at school but if I understand correctly that if I can get access to the internet I can download Vista again through microsofts website. I had an old XP disk lying around so I could get some functionality out of the computer which now works fine except it wont recognize any wireless network (i dont think my drivers are found obviously) and when I plug it in directly to the router with an ethernet cord it doesn't read that either.

If i could somehow obtain the driver for my wireless card I think I would be in business as it is not detecting any network at all.

Drivers are Operating System specific. (Which is why I asked.) You'll have to load Vista drivers for the same hardware when you "move" to Vista.

With this understanding, if you want to go ahead with XP drivers, please list the Wireless parameters of the hardware. To get a detailed report of all your (recognized) machines hardware;

Download, install, and run Everest Home Edition on this machine. (Clean FreeWare)

Once it's finished loading and running, click on the Report Wizard in the Menu Bar. Save all hardware related pages (the default) to a TEXT file. (It will save it to C:\Program Files\Lavalys\EVEREST Home Edition\Reports by default, unless you redirect it.)

Compress (zip) the Everest Report text file and attach that zipped text document to your next posting. (When posting, click on Advanced, and just below the posting box you'll see "Additional Options", and within that, "Attach Files". Click on "Manage Attachments" and follow the prompts. Browse to the file and choose UPLOAD.)

Here's the attached report from the affected computer.

Is this a Toshiba Laptop?

Ref;
Storage:
IDE Controller Intel(R) ICH8M Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 2850
IDE Controller Intel(R) ICH8M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller
Disk Drive TOSHIBA MK1637GSX (149 GB, IDE)
Disk Drive SanDisk Cruzer Mini USB Device (486 MB, USB)
Optical Drive Optiarc DVD RW AD-7530A
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

and;

Partitions:
C: (NTFS) 29999 MB (25257 MB free)
D: (NTFS) 122623 MB (49152 MB free)
Total Size 149.0 GB (72.7 GB free)


I'm wondering if D: is a Recovery Partition. You'll usually find a Toshiba disk in a Toshiba machine. If so, all drivers for Sound, Video, Network, etc can usually be found on the machines site. What is the Make and Model Number of the Laptop?

I'll keep digging while I wait for your answer...........

The computer was a gift that I believe it was purchased from iBuypower.com. I can tell you for sure that it is however not a full Toshiba laptop. The D: partition contains my music and other programs so that I wouldn't have to replace them in case an issue such as this occurred and I don't believe it contains any of the necessary drivers.

Just wanted to see if you could help me locate these drivers? It's been a couple of weeks and I'm sitting here with a perfectly good laptop that's a dud without the internet or functioning video or sound drivers because I don't know the exact specs.

Apologies. I just went from XP Home to XP Pro, and in the process lost track of this post.

Open Everest. Expand NETWORK. Please list what is says for both; Windows Network and PCI/PnP Network. Exactly as it shows.

Forgot to add;

What is the exact Make and Model of this laptop?