Cannot uninstall/reinstall network devices WinXP

[Kiriray]

Hi,

We're having a big problemw with a user's laptop...
A coworker messed up with adding the computer in the domain, lost the pw and all that stuff. Fortunately, he was able to recover the pw but when he was going to join the domain again, all the network devices seem to have failed! (they were working before the mishap). They all have exclamation marks on them! (infrared, and work card)
We've tried uninstalling but it said "unable to uninstall, might be needed to boot the system" ... but then the device would disappear. When you reboot, it shows again but would say "cannot install, unable to find file"... we've tried updating drivers (downloaded from the IBM website), uninstall and reinstall in all possible ways but to no avail.
HELP!

We have an IBM ThinkPad A31

thanks!

 

[smah]

You could try uninstalling all networking protocols. Don't reboot. Then try to remove the devices from Device Manager. If the OS is XP, you won't be able to remove TCP/IP, but there is a method to reset it, if that's your OS.

 

[smah]

Well, I wasn't paying attention to the heading or what forum I was posting in.

Here's the reset instructions:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;299357

 

[Kiriray]

thanks.... problem is we could not even get into the networking part... the only networking thing on the laptop right now is a dial up connection which does not even work.

 

[smah]

Could this be your condition?

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;329441

 

[Kiriray]

here's the error when we try to uninstall the device:

"Failed to uninstall the device. The device maybe required to boot up the computer".

Then the device would appear to have been uninstalled. (they're all networking devices)... Then when we reboot, Windows XP would automatically detect the 'new hardware
but would give this error

"Cannot install hardware.
There is a problem installing this hardware. An error occurred during the installation of the device. The system cannot find file specified"

and the device would show an exclamation mark. and we don't have any networking connection to configure....

thanks again!