windows installation gone miserably wrong

[onearmedpanda]

okay so-

one day i decided to do a basic reinstallation of windows on a computer i have in my house (no big deal, i've done it with same disk atleast 3 other times on that same computer), and half way through the installation it stopped at "34 minutes remaining"on the installing devices part and stayed there for well over two hours. so, having no idea what to do, i restarted the computer, and the installation. the second time nothing went wrong and i sailed through the installation. but when i started it up, the resolution was horrible (800 x 600) with only a few colors avaliable. and worst of all i couldn't connect to the internet when i was hardwired to the router...

so i checked my device manager and i had no network adapters installed. which was funny because all the other times i'd installed windows, i could connect to the internet fine right when i booted up and the network adapters were always installed. so i tried to install windows on a slave hard drive on my linux computer in attempt to dual boot, just to see if it was the disk problem, or my computer was the problem. and the installation did that same thing, and i ended up with the same problems (no resoltuion, and no network adapters). i tried to install the drivers for my network adapter, but device manager still didn't recognise it, nor could i get on the internet. now i know that its a problem with windows because on the same computer, i could get on the internet in linux, but when i switch to windows, and i can't get on.

so then i assumed it was the windows disk right? two installations, two computers that have done this fine in the past, same problem. well i got another xp disk from a friend. this time the installation went just fine, but when i booted up i had the same problems. in the past i had assumed the devices (network adapter and the monitor) didn't work because windows froze during the "installing devices" phase, but now the installation went fine and they still don't work, so i tried installing drivers for my network adapter; it still doesn't work.

then i decided to try and install another network device (a wireless linksys adapter, because we had a wireless network) so the installation of that went fine, then i connected to the network and thought, thank god this over, but then when i open ie, the page cannot be displayed. so now my computer says i'm connected to the network but i can't access the internet. i checked ip config, and i only have an ip address and a subnet mask, nothing else is listed there.

now i would be here asking for help about the fact that my router says im connected, but i can't display pages, but i think the problem is bigger than that.

this horrible problem has consumed 3 days of my life and i would greatly appreciate any suggestions, no matter how obsure. i just want to know why its doing this. two disk, two computers, and one day they just don't work. thanks in advance

[-pops-]

Is this a commercial computer that was originally supplied with a "recovery disk" rather than a full Windows version?

If recovery disk, are you attempting the re-install with the disk that came with the machine or with a copy of Windows?

Are you loading the new installation on top of the previous?

Have you tried a full format of the drive before installing the new system?

Have you tried resetting the BIOS to its default state?

[onearmedpanda]

its a dell and the first windows disk i used is a recovery disk with windows xp w/ service pack 1 included

the second disk i used was a windows corperate edition w/ service pack 2 included

i didn't format the disk,

i'm going to format it now,

but then which cd do your recommend using?

the dell disk, or the plain windows disk?

[-pops-]

A problem with Dell, HP/Compaq and some other "brand name" computers is that sometimes the BIOS is "tattooed" such that it will only accept the relevant recovery disk to reload the O/S. If this is the case with the machine you have, the only way to reload Windows is by the method stated by the manufacturer.

You may want to look in the BIOS to see if it is tied to Dell. You could try discharging the BIOS settings and then loading a standard version of Windows but this does not always work.

[onearmedpanda]

okay so i formated the drive

then i reinstalled windows with the dell disk

and the only thing that's better is the colors

i have all teh normal colors and everything looks normal

but i can't change my screen resolution without messing up the colors still

and the network adapters still aren't installed

and i installed the linksys card and it still says i'm connected to the internet

but i can't get online

shoud i just call my isp and ask them for help?

something tells me tehy'll just tell me to install my network adapters

and then come back to them, but i can't

ugh

[Coreper]

after reinstalling windows, you should use Windows Update a lot: untill there are no updates left

then you must install all drivers for your pc hardware

does this help?