Seriously screwed up my brand new Pavilion...desperately need help. [LAN driver?]

First off, this is going to make me look like a total idiot, so I fully acknowledge that in advance.

Well, today I bought the HP Pavilion dm4-1060us from Office Depot.

As always, the laptop had a ton of bloatware, so I went to the program uninstaller via Control Panel and started uninstalling all the useless pre-loaded software (Norton, Hulu, Netflix, Windows Live, HP MediaSmart, etc.).

Unfortunately, at one point I must have ignorantly deleted what I now assume to have been the LAN driver, which I deducted in retrospect of my wireless Internet all of a sudden not working.

That is, it appears I deleted the driver necessary for wireless Internet connection.

Now, I know there's a driver subforum in this HP subforum, and it seems this might (hopefully) just be a matter of downloading the right driver. However, I'm not sure which driver I should download.

To complicate matters, in a poorly reasoned attempt to resolve the matter, I re-installed Windows 7 with another CD, meaning my original 64-bit Windows 7 packaged with the HP was replaced by a generic 32-bit Windows 7.

Yeah, two mind-numbingly idiotic mistakes in one day. I feel indescribably terrible.

As an added consequence of replacing my original Windows 7, the function keys and the fingerprint scanner no longer work. As the wireless on/off button was itself a function key, that of course doesn't work either.

So, does anyone know if this can simply be resolved by downloading the right driver(s)? The guy at Office Depot told me that HP drivers aren't available online, though the HP driver subforum seems to suggest otherwise.

I have never been so desperate for help from fellow folks on the Internet, so I humbly plead for the vast collective expertise of this forum's users to assist me in this $800 near-crisis.

I would be more than willing to answer any questions necessary to clarify this ordeal.

Thank you so much in advance to anyone who can help.

 

Hi,,
Did u make the recovery discs? If u did just do a factory restore from the discs and u are good to go.
In case u didnt make the recovery discs & u installed the 32 bit on the same partition as ur preinstalled 64 bit partition, do this
make the system reserve partition active(100mb partition ),now ur recovery partition would be recognized,reboot from x64 bit disc again,when the choice for installation appears choose repair then choose restore from an existing recovery,point to ur recovery partition and finish recovery.
Hope that helps?
Drivers are available on the HP site and drivers thread .
u need the 64 bit Windows 7 ones?

link for drivers page
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...vers-hp-dm4-dv5-gen-2-cq32-envy-14-intel.html

 

Just do a CLEAN install with 64bit windows 7. This will wipe out ALL HP bloatware. You can find all the drivers on HP website. Just search by your model. Never trust Office Depot sales rep. They are as clueless as my grandma when it comes to technology.

 

Hm, it seems like I'm not missing the driver so much as that my wireless is unplugged or not enabled.

I downloaded the driver, and the installation went fine, but it said I still need to plug in the device.

Meanwhile, Speccy says "Wi-Fi not enabled".

Is there some way for me to get the system to recignize/enable the wireless device? The physical wireless on/off button (a function key) isn't working.

 

Actually, some times the sale rep are right.

The HP website is somewhat still incomplete when it comes drivers and software packages...oddly enough

You might end up install stuff older than the factory install.

I think he did do a clean install and tripped with critically poor preparation.

@wigglypuff
What did you install??

 

In Windows Control Panel there is a Wi-fi control. Also you do have the device manager. If you didn't reboot that might put it to work.

No worries this it is just software.