my dad bought the WG311 v3 wireless adapter from netgear for his computer. after installing the software it disabled user switching and logon…only the administrator that installed the software could logon. it said I had to uninstall the software so I did and next time I tried to find a way to just install the device driver without the software…well I did and then windows wouldent boot…it said NTLDR missing so I booted from the XP disc to do a repair…I ran bootfix…it didnt work. then I ran mbrfix(master boot record) and that didnt work…I also copied ntldr and ntdetect to root from XP cd. now here I am with the harddrive in my computer on vista and Im looking at the drive with computer management\disc management and it shows the drive as a single partition with 76.33GB FAT file system (which is correct) but if you explore the drive or check its properties it says there is only 10MB total space with 3.4MB used the only files on the drive are ntldr and ntdetect
wyntry is absolutely right(I especially like your reply to dwight lol) but I ran out of text space for the original question(evil 1000 character limit)…anyway as for that downloadable hotfix I did find that and wanted to use it but I made the mistake of researching the problem after trying to fix it myself and thanks to that wrongly installed driver I cant boot to windows to install the fix. thing is…I was going to reinstall XP but as I mentioned b4 even tho it is an 80GB HD and disc manager sees that…explorer itself only sees it as 10MB and when I go to install XP thats all it sees as well. so it wants me to format the drive but thats not an option for me as there are important things on the disc…is there a way to access the data so I can copy it to my HD’s on my computer so I can reformat the drive safely and then reinstall XP? that looks like what Im gonna have to end up doing…I just dont know how to access the "vanished" data on the drive…
Tagged with: character limit • computer management • dad • device driver • disc management • disc manager • harddrive • hd • important things • lol • master boot record • mistake • netgear • partition • quot • reply • text space • tho • wg311 • wireless adapter
Filed under: Windows Repair Software
dont use the net gear. wipe hard drive reinstall os so you can start over without the registry changes made by netgear.
it makes no sense to blame the computer or a wireless adapter for your own shortcomings.
Boot to the XP CD and run a "repair installation" on it. (you won’t lose any of your files, just the Windows updates) Here’s how to do that, with screenshots:
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm#How%20to%20Repair%20Windows%20XP%20by%20Installing%20Over%20top%20of%20Existing%20Setup:
After you’re done, go to the Windows Update site and reinstall the Windows updates.
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UPDATE:
You’re not listening. I gave the way to repair without losing any of your data or settings. In order to do that, you have to do a Repair Installation. That’s not the same thing as "Pressing R" and going into the Recovery Console as you did. Boot to the XP CD and instead of choosing "R", press "Enter" instead to enter the "install" setup. At that point it’ll detect your existing installation and ask you if you want to repair it.
Its probably not compatible with Vista. Restore the system
I hate that Netgear changes the registry entry for user logon when you install their products. They SUCK!!!!!!
Anyway, it sound like at this point you are stuck with having to do a complete reinstall of Windows.
After you do that and put the wireless card back in, then there are two options to fix the logon issue you describe (it is a know "issue" from Netgear):
1) Try this link to see if the XP fix works on Vista too: http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_desc/fix_xp_logon.htm
2) Run regedit and do a search for MrvGINA.dll in the registry (or just GINA.DLL). that is the Graphical Interface for Network Authentication that Netgear changed when installing the driver. I forget exactly where it is, but it is in the startup section of the registry. Delete that entry and reboot – you should be all fine.
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Dwight your are an @$$ – how you ever got to Top Contributor I’ll never know. Maybe it’s all those canned answers you constatnly copy/paste all over the place.
As opposed to most questions here, THIS one actually has enough details to indicate that the asker has half a brain and tried to resolve the issue already.
Unlike the majority of the morons around here who are too lazy to even come up with enough of a question that makes sense.
And in THIS case, it is wholly approriate to BLAME Netgear for changing the system logon process simply to use a piece of hardware. Especially since there is NO indication or warning to the user that this is going to happen.
The average user who expects to have the desktop appear when the machine turns on (about 90% of all Windows users) should NOT have to deal with either editing a registry or hunting around for some third party solution to fix Netgear’s screwup.
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Rancid – please send an email to me at wyntre_2000 a t yahoo dot com and I may have a solution for you.