Why does my Windows partition hate the Internet?

May 25, 2010 10:50 AM

The Windows partition of my PC is no longer able to connect to my home network. How do I fix it?

I have a PC dual-booting into Windows XP and Ubuntu 10.04. It's connected to a WRT54GL router running Tomato via Cat 5 cable. This set-up had been working fine for maybe 18 months (modulo the Ubuntu version).

A few days ago, the PC stopped being able to connect when I boot into Windows: ipconfig insists "Network Cable unplugged", Network Connections says "Media disconnected". So I can't even access the router, let alone the Internet. I haven't made any particular changes to the PC recently either.

However, when I boot into Ubuntu, everything works fine (evidence: I can post this question). Also, my Windows laptop can still access the Internet wirelessly via the router.

I have tried all the usual things I can think of: ipconfig /renew, using a different cable, rebooting the router and the cable modem, and a few things I found researching the problem: resetting the winsock catalogue, resetting the IP interface via netsh. None of these worked.

The last resort is a full Windows reinstall, but is there anything else I can try before that?

posted by Electric Dragon to computers & internet (5 answers total)

Go in to the device manager and unistall the network adapter and/or the driver. A reboot will be required and then Windows should "reinstall" a default networking driver that should hopefully work.

If your NIC is on the way out you can always buy another off NewEgg and just disable or remove the current one.
posted by barake at 11:18 AM on May 25, 2010

Go in to the device manager and unistall the network adapter and/or the driver. A reboot will be required and then Windows should "reinstall" a default networking driver that should hopefully work.

Already tried that too.

If your NIC is on the way out

It's integrated into the motherboard. And if the NIC is the problem why does it work fine in Ubuntu?
posted by Electric Dragon at 11:21 AM on May 25, 2010

Kinda stumped, but , make sure you've tried everything in the How to troubleshoot the following message in Windows XP: "A network cable is unplugged" knowledge base article. Maybe see if you can borrow, or buy used off Craigslist, an actual network card if you have a spare slot.
posted by hungrysquirrels at 12:11 PM on May 25, 2010

Seconding Barake's idea - make sure you shut down after removing, and starting up before re-adding. Do not let it automate this - make sure it asks for a disk and point it to the right place, in case of some corruption.

Did you also try setting static routes rather than using DHCP? Can you ping your router if you set this up?
posted by davemee at 6:14 AM on May 26, 2010

Cheers, guys, sorted now. I downloaded the latest version of the driver from the mfr and made sure to use that rather than accepting the default choice from Windows and it's working again.
posted by Electric Dragon at 10:59 AM on May 26, 2010