Re-install Windows problem

Because I know people here can help!

I completely wiped out my hard drive to start fresh with a new install of windows and now am having some trouble. The biggest problem seems to be that my computer no longer knows how to work the ethernet port and thus I cant get on the interwebs. I had all the original disks and they havent helped. I did get something from the Dell website on another computer that I will try to install but I'm not sure its what I needed. The worst part is, because I cant update windows, a number of other things also refuse to work. Any thoughts or fixes?

There should be a Dell driver disk.
Sounds like you just need to install the network card drivers.

If you don't have the cd go to dell's website and download the driver there from another pc.

what is the Windows version?

On XP (because that's what I have in front of me), go to the control panel -> System -> Hardware (tab) -> Device Manager

Any "unknown" devices will be listed under a yellow question mark. The ethernet controller sounds like it's not recognized and should be there.

You might have to access Dell's website on another machine to download the proper network driver, but once that's installed you should be good to go.

There are yellow ?s by everything in the category of the ethernet. I did find some things on the dell website and will try them when I have a chance. None of them looked exactly right but hopefully they will work as they are supposedly for my machine. Its XP, btw.
If I get that working I assume I can go to the windows website and pull down the 40,000 updates I assume will need to be reinstalled as well?

There may be a hardware conflict with another device, perhaps something added after it left the factory. The first thing I'd try is: Delete the non-working hardware from device manager and reboot.

It may not help but it's easy and worth a shot. Good luck.

Update:
I never got to try the driver methods suggested because the dang thing just wont get into Windows at all now. I ran some kind of diagnostic (F8 or F10 at startup, I dont remember which it was now) and everything checked out. Can or should I just try to reinstall again and hope for better results?

I actually just did this over the weekend. With that said, if you've tried installing Windows and it isn't working, try again. If it still doesn't work, your computer my be eff'd. The exact same thing happened with my last computer, so I just went out and bouught a new one. Good luck!

How old is your XP disk? If it's several years old and doesn't have any service packs included, the included drivers often won't support the network. My Computer > Properties to determine what version you have.

If you have another computer, find, download, and burn service pack 2. Run from the CD after installing XP.

Its an old version, pre SP2 I'm sure. At this point I'd just settle for getting it up and running. I will try to burn the updates if getting the network working still proves to be a problem. I'm hoping for the best I'm not really in a position to buy a new pc right now and the daughter is fit to be tied cause her itunes access is dead!

Unless I find out differently I'm going to try and redo the new XP image again.

If you have another computer you can always create a new windows install disc and integrate all of the updated drivers into the install. Use nlite. Its free.

What is the S/N of your PC? go here: Dell - Drivers and Downloads and put your service tag number in and get the ethernet drivers. put the install on a CD or thumb drive and install

Update - Deleting the drivers and using the dell site one seemed to work.

HOWEVER, the install still isnt working because something else is wrong. Anyone seen this page before?

Your hard drive failed the start-up diagnostics.

What I would do would be to put that drive in an external enclosure, plug it into another computer, and run some utilities on it. I don't know if you have those resources available to you.

Thats definitely beyond my pay grade :)

Would replacing it fix the problem as well? Its not much of a hard drive to begin with but if sliding a new one in there is worth a shot that would still be my cheapest option I think. This one is 5 or 6 years old and only 40 gig.

Yes, that should fix the problem as indicated by the screen shot. A new hard drive that is.