3Com 3C509B - blunder - help!

[Krist Skyhill]

Hey all..

I recently got me a DSL connection and as my primary computer was in pieces, I wanted to get the connection working on this one. I had to change the connector type on my 3Com from Coax to RJ45, and while trying to do that, I un-installed the card in Device Manager.

Now, the situation is that I've got the connection wired to a newer 3Com, but I can't get the older card back because WinXP Pro refuses to find any drivers for it. This is ridiculous, since the drivers were automatically installed on a clean install..

WinXP offers to find the drivers on the net, but it doesn't.. The card isn't on the manually pickable driver's list either. I've tried the latest (old) drivers from 3Com, but they don't work on XP. I tried System Restore, but it appears the automatic restore point from January isn't valid. What am I supposed to do to get my LAN back? I really don't want to do a clean install as all the stuff from my other (in pieces) computer is on this hard drive and I don't want to risk losing the data.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Sazar]

I suppose you tried to roll back the driver?

anyhow.. if you know your component you can try a manual search of the web..

also perhaps the drivers have been installed and the device will work if you use it?

try it out.. manual search or rollback might be your best bet...

g.luck

 

[Krist Skyhill]

Rollback says there's no backup of the driver, and I guess there wouldn't be since I un-installed it completely..

The drivers definitely aren't installed, the card shows up as a "?" in the Device Manager. I'm not sure what you mean by a manual search of the web.. ? There are no updated drivers for the card, but the one that came with XP was just fine. I just have no idea how to get that driver back, since it doesn't show up on the "pick driver manually" list.

EDIT: Yay, I finally got it working! Needed a little snooping around in Win98SE, then going to the XP CD to find the same .INF file that Win98 uses, expanding it and then pointing XP to that file.. The damn thing couldn't figure out that it had the driver all along without a little assistance..