New hard drive, fresh windows 7 install= no wireless internet/wifi?

Greetings all,

I recently had a hard drive crash on me in my M17xR3 so I bought a new one and installed it. The old hard drive was a Seagate 750GB 7500rpm and the new one I put in was a western digital 750gb 7500rpm.

The old hard drive was in Module 0 (the bay NOT in the middle). I took it out, put the new HD in and then got a black screen saying "no bootable disk found" etc. I then put the new HD in module1 (the bay in the middle) and inserted windows 7 recovery cd and it worked just fine.


I got windows installed just fine. Once it had installed I then inserted my M17xR3 recovery media disk. I installed EVERYTHING i could that I knew my M17xR3 had in it. Only thing I am missing is the wireless wifi. I CANNOT connect to the internet or wifi at all. I installed the Atheros drivers (this is for ethernet) so I can connect to internet if I directly plug in but its as if my computer no longer has a wireless card.

I went to "device manager" and its not even showing up under network adapters. I am only seeing the Atheros ethernet and a couple bluetooths. Nothing there about intel/bigfoot/dell wifi wireless adapter. How do I get it back? I wanted my internet back so I can get MY personal drivers from dell support that matches my service tag.

Also, upon starting up the computer on the new HD, I get a white screen. I have to press the alien head power button once and then once again to get to my windows login password screen. Any idea why this is? I am so fed up with this machine that im about to yank out this HD and just sell my m17xr3 to whoever gives me a good price. >.>

 

Go to Dell.com and download tg e drivers for your wireless card. That should fix your wifi.

 

Well I was able to fix both issues. I now have wifi and the white screen doesnt show upon boot up. I have one more problem though: my wireless internet seems much slower now. I am not sure if its the driver or what. It said this was the updated driver. I am using the Intel link 1000 BGN wireless adapter. It seems things just take forever to load now compared to how they loaded before I changed my HD and re-installed windows 7.

 

Try the latest one form the manufacturer's site then.

 

I had the same issue when I re-installed Win 7. When you go to Dell.com and go to your driver's section, you'll see two versions of each driver. Download the Microsoft package for the wifi and that should do the trick... atleast, it did in my case.