I have installed a network card and all the relevant drivers. I setup the IP address for my local LAN (Only 2 computers) and I can ping the two computers in both directions. I made sure client for microsoft networks and file and print sharing was installed.

When I try locate \\192.168.0.1 (local machine) I get a message saying that th network was not present or started. (this works fine on \\192.168.0.2 also win2k) When I try to manually start the workstation service I get an error 2250 and get told to check the event viewer.

In the event viewer I see that MRxSmb and RDR (both even ID 5727) could not be started and that the workstation service failed with an event id of 7024.

I have reinstalled SP4 to no avail, and reinstalled the network card.

Am I going crazy or have I missed something?

Hello and welcome to Bleeping Computer.
Are there any other error messages in the Event Viewer? Could you re-post the error message in the xact format displayed in the Event Viewer?