Re-install Windows and now no internet on laptop

I had to re-install Windows XP on my laptop today and now I have no internet connection. I have a D-link router and still have connection on my desktop, but can't seem to figure out how to get connection on my laptop. HELP!!

 

I know this sounds stupid to ask, but did you install all of the laptops drivers?

 

That would be my guess. Do you have any unknown devices in the Device Manager? Right click on my computer, hit "Manage" and you can find the Device Manager in the window that pops up.

 

It's not stupid, considering I don't know. I didn't do anything extra, so I guess I didn't.
I did find the device manager, but I don't know what to do with it.

I'm not that good with the computer *shrug*

 

What kind of laptop do you have? Make and model please.

Also, did it come with a separate drivers cd, or did you restore windows from a recovery partition built into the laptop?

 

It's a DELL Inspiron Model PP01X.
I don't know about a separate driver's cd. It came with a different router and I installed this new one and it worked right away (I think-it was a couple of years ago). I reinstalled windows from the original windows cd. It was missing something this morning and repairing it wouldn't work.

 

Windows relies almost entirely on hardware manufacturers to write drivers; so unlike other operating systems, you typically have to either download or have the drivers on a CD to allow Windows to use the hardware. What make and model is your laptop, exactly?

 

Unfortunately I couldn't find your drivers, but if you go here and select your exact model from their list, I'm sure that you'll find it.

 

It might be I8200. I found that model number on the link, but don't know what to do once I got there.

 

Given that you are not computer savvy the easiest, least grief ridden thing for your to do is to bring the laptop to a friend who is computer savvy and have them deal with it. S/He will have it taken care of in a hour.

Are you trying to connect using a wireless connection or a wired internet connection? If the former you might see if you can get the wired connection to work because if you can it will make it soooo much easier to right things.

Just try to get the machine back on the network and then download the Dell service application. This should then automatically scan your laptop and provide a simple way to download the rest of the drivers for it.

If you can't establish any network connectivity, then as others have said you have to locate the network card (and possibly other) drivers for your machine and install them. If you don't have a CD from Dell with these drivers then you will need to use a computer with access to the internet to download the drivers from Dell's support site and then put the drivers on a CD or flash drive to be able to install them on your laptop. However in order to do this you'll first need to determine what hardware is installed on your machine.

How does one accomplish this? By typing your Dell service code (or whatever they call it) into the Dell support site it might bring up a list of drivers for your laptop. If not you may have to use the paperwork that came with the machine to determine what the machine has in it and manually find the necessary drivers from the Dell support site.

Start with the network card because again once connectivity is reestablished you'll want to use the Dell service application to manage the installation of the other drivers as this makes things much much easier.

Folks, have I misstated anything here?

 

If I am going to be downloading drivers, and I don't have wireless connection on the laptop, can I connect to the internet (wired) and download that way or can I download to my desktop and then save on a cd and then run on the desktop?

 

You need to visit the Dell board and search for the XP reinstall guide. It will explain how to reinstall Windows on Dell laptops.

 

Generally, yes, either way will work.