Lost IP Configuration!

Help! I can no longer connect my Dell desktop to the internet, and think I inadvertently deleted a file it needs. I spent 1 hr on the phone with my cable provider and 2 hrs with Dell's tech support in India, and the only useful thing I learned is that when I run the command ipconfig, the only thing that comes up on the screen is "Windows IP Configuration." No actual information. This started the morning after I deleted a ton of stuff from my hard drive. I thought I was only removing things that I recognized, but guess I messed up. Of course I also emptied the trash.

Can anyone help me!

Thanks so much! You guys are awesome!

 

can you go into device manager (right click my computer - properties - hardware tab - device manager) find network adapters in the list there. does it say what kind of NIC you have? is there a yellow ? or ! listed next to the NIC? you might have deleted a driver somehow.

 

You're a genius! There was a yellow ! on the item "Intel(R)PRO/100 VE Network Connection. I've downloaded a new driver and transferred it to the computer and now I'm going to test it, but ipconfig gives me a reassuring message and the yellow ! is gone.

Thanks so much!!

 

no problem

 

Unfortunately, I got excited too soon. Still no internet connection. It can't seem to automatically find the IP address, and when I ran repair it failed. So I chose to enter the IP address manually, but still no internet connection. I am able to look up the IP address and the Subnet Mask. Maybe there's something else I'm missing???

Thanks for any suggestions you have!

 

Sometimes unplugging your router and plugging it back in works. simple powercycle.
try to reboot your computer as well.
otherwise, what does the output of ipconfig say?
are you able to renew the ip manually? as in ipconfig/release then ipconfig/renew.

 

Go to device manager as KingSteve has said but this time delete the network card and restart windows (make sure you have the driver for the network card just in case.

When your system reboots windows will find the network card and install the proper drivers for you and configure the IP stack.

 

Thanks, jconstan and kingsteve! I'm trying everything both of you have suggested and so far no interenet. When everything rebooted both before and after removing and replacing the network card, I got a message that Windows couldn't find my IP address. Using the repair button yields a message that it could not renew the IP address.

Using ipconfig, first it said:
Windows IP Configuration
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix :
Autoconfiguration IP Address : 169.254.147.207
Subnet Mask : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway :

When I used ipconfig/release, the numbers all zeroed out. When I used ipconfig/renew, I got the message "An error occurred while renewing interface Local Area Connection 2: unable to contact your DHCP server. Request has timed out.

Aaarrrghhhh!!! And thanks for any other suggestions you may have!

 

Are you behind a router? Do you know the IP of the router that you would use to console into it via a browser?

 

This sounds like I'm stupid, but I don't know if I have a router. I don't think so. This is in my home and we just have a cable modem - does that count? Nothing else is networked in any way - just cable modem to the internet. I'm using my laptop to do these conversations and have to keep unplugging it and plugging the desktop back in to test it. Thanks!

 

can you tell me what the ipconfig output is on the computer that has internet access?

we also might have to do this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/299357

 

ipconfig for the laptop is:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix : eau.wi.charter.com
IP Address: 66.188.112.181
Subnet Mask: 255.255.252.0
Default Gateway: 66.188.112.1

 

Before we try what i had below, lets give http://support.microsoft.com/kb/299357 a try. basically telling you to type in 'netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt' at command prompt without the '. Do this on the computer with the problems of course. if that doesnt work, we can try out what is below. figure id put it both here so you can do it all at once without having to go back and forth.

looks like youll have to do an ipconfig/all to get the dns info. but once you get the dns address, try unplugging your laptop again and manually assigning the desktop with the exact info from your laptop. since youre going from modem to PC, i assume you dont have both computers connected at the same time, so you wont be conflicting with anything.

 

KingSteve, thanks for how patient and helpful you've been. I tried the netsh thing with no good results, so then tried manually entering all the IP info from my laptop. Also no go. ipconfig shows the info I put in, but it still won't connect to the internet. ipconfig/all doesn't show either a primary or connection specific DNS suffix. I don't know if that's normal or not. It wasn't there before, and I did enter the suffix from the laptop ipconfig. I'm soooo tired of this, it's 90 degrees and we don't have air conditioning, and I have work to do, so I'm going to take a break from this problem, probably until Friday morning.

Thanks again!