BleepingComputer.com: Network Adapters Missing

Hey all, my first post here.

Over the weekend, one of my co-worker's machines decided to do something weird. He noticed he could not log onto the network, wired or otherwise. He tried to get a static ip, restarting, repairing, disabling/reenabling, reinstalling drivers. (he's not a dummy about these things.)

Nothing has been installed recently. System Restore failed to work, it keeps saying that it is unable to restore to any points.

The network adapters show up in the network properties tab, but when one runs ipconfig /all in the command prompt, nothing shows up. And it only shows the first line:

Windows IP Configuration


We've confirmed that the network hardware is intact because the BIOS of the computer has its own network adapter and browser, which works.

Any suggestions as to what is wrong? If I can isolate which system it is, I can try to replace it. Otherwise, we'll just reinstall this sucker.

Thanks a lot in advance!

<<We've confirmed that the network hardware is intact because the BIOS of the computer has its own network adapter and browser, which works.>>

I don't know what you mean. In simple terms...the BIOS...is a summary of hardware components/functions installed in the system and their settings. If it reflects a network adapter, that adapter is on the system motherboard.

Same for browsers. In order to function...a browser must be installed and function from an operating system. It belongs to the O/S and is not reflected anywhere in the BIOS, since it is not a piece of hardware or a system function/setting.

In any case...take a look in Device Manager and see what's listed under Network Adapters. Uninstall the drivers...then reboot and reinstall same.

Installing Hardware Drivers - http://www.optimizingpc.com/install/hardwaredrivers.html

How to update a Windows hardware driver - http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/how-to-update-a-windows-hardware-driver/

Louis

hamluis, thank you for replying.

There is a simple browser installed as part of a Lenovo's Thinkvantage's recovery console. Sorry if I called it a BIOS, as it is true that it's not actually the BIOS, but rather a simple OS it's got built in on the other partition. Basically, we think that the hardware is okay, and that this is a corrupt windows driver problem of some sort.

Reinstalling device drivers for the individual network adapters was not successful. We deleted and reinstalled everything under network adapters. If there's any other system drivers I should take a look at that would be involved with networking, please let me know.

The adapters and protocols do show up under system information (msinfo32) and look okay. I've been considering trying to flush and redo the Winsocks2k.

Got it, thanks .

You can take a look at Event Viewer and see if there are any errors which impact network capability. If there are, please post the details of such.

How To Use Event Viewer - http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic40108.html

In additiion to inputs from other members of this forum, one other thing to consider: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/forum21.html

Louis