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.

************EDIT******************

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.

********************second edit*********************

Rancid – please send an email to me at wyntre_2000 a t yahoo dot com and I may have a solution for you.

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.