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bnsmith001

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April 4th, 2007 20:00

Help -- Inspiron B120 Wireless not working...

See bottom of note for Questions. Problem part 1: I had to reinstall from the XP Home CD, and all of the the drivers that I could download... but the wireless connection still isn't working. Yet, I don't know how to identify what wireless hardware is in the machine. There are, like, 4 to 6 wireless network drivers available for this computer. I've installed each one, and none of them worked to enable the wireless network connection. Problem part 2: Every one of the drivers say Wireless LAN... and one of the drivers (not sure which one now) had a set up which talked like I was setting up a wireless hub. Now after installing each driver, the control program for that install won't even work. I am not interested in making my Inspiron B120 a hub for the wireless connections, but I am interested in hooking it back up wirelessly to my Linksys Wireless Router... like it did immediately out of the box... before I started getting a STOP c0000021a message... that Dell Support couldn't help me with (not even email me a link to instructions... greedy so and sos). I found a DSRfix that didn't work. I did find out that the DSR volumes are still intact... so if I could get them to install Windows instead of DMRK, things would be great. Question 1: How do I identify the wireless NIC that was working perfectly in the Inspiron B120 before? Question 2: How do I determine if the Dell System Restore partitions are still intact, and not corrupt.... ie, can I get a checksum or shasum of the volume (or run a tool), and determine that it is still valid? Question 3: Can I plug another wireless NIC into the Inspiron B120, and get the computer back up and running now (with the re-installed XP Home)? It took me forever to find this forum, so feel free to respond and communicate directly with my email address, bnsmith /at/ yahoo /dot/ com Thank you for any help or web articles that you can link me to. Thank you, Barry Smith

Gina Q

2 Intern

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1.7K Posts

April 5th, 2007 17:00

Barry,
 
You said you recently reloaded the system from the XP Home CD. Since you used the CD this would create a new master boot record (MBR). Since there is a new MBR the PC Restore is typically corrupted, but if you want to try to reinstall that turn your system completely off, then back on. When it begins to boot hold down the CRTL and the F11 to initiate the PC restore. Since this probably will not work I'll answer the other questions too.
 
First after you loaded the operating system you must load the drivers in a specific order. Here is a link on how to load the drivers. What order do the drivers need to be installed in Windows XP on my Dell desktop or portable computer? If you did not load the Notebook System Software first and then the chipset you may need to reload the OS again. You may go ahead and load them at this time, but if there are other problems later on you may decide to redo the install.
 
In order to determine your wireless NIC you can go to this site and enter your service tag and choose original configuration and look down the list. It will identify all the parts that were on your system originally including the wireless card. The other way is to open the door where the wireless card is located and look at the chip.
 
You ask if you can put another wireless nic in your system and you can through the expresscard slot, but there is really no reason if we can get your system reloaded correctly and the correct driver installed.

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