I am working on a my friend's hp pavilion, maybe 6 years old. xp professional. It should have wireless, but there is not wireless in network connections. I thought at first wireless button had been pushed by mistake, but when I push it ...no light comes on...nothing. I am trying to find out if my friend has restore discs. Someone told me to do a hard reset, but I dont see how that would HELP anything. The laptop works perfectly except for that. I installed a wireless card (you plug in), installed the drivers for that and wireless WORKED fine. Do you think a restore back to original config would help. I really didnt want to do that especially if he has no discs. Even if it has it on a partition...it seems to me a lot could go wrong. (no date or programs are important at this point). I just thought the card has gone bad or lost the drivers. THANK you for any help you can give me.BTW I also installed drivers for the laptops internal wireless card and it did nothing.If you re-install the MBoard drivers for the laptop it won't hurt anything.
These include the wireless ethernet drivers.
You might want to disconnect the wireless card for this step.
Then travel to Device Manager and see if the laptop wireless chipset shows healthy ( no Yellow !!'s )

If so try to reconnect.

Wiping a machine out to try and fix this is a bit drastic...especially if he has no CD's.thank you. i am going to do that now. i'll let u know. thanks for taking your time!I have a stupid question I went to http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=228&lc=en&dlc=&cc=us&product=353507 and downloaded and installed all the "Driver-Network" drivers. Which one would be the motherboard drivers?please forgive me...i solved the problem. i downloaded drivers for the hp pav ze5300 because that is what was on the laptop. i just happened to NOTICE a half peeled off label saying ze5385us !!! it has the driver for the wirless card!!! I guess the 5300 didnt have wireless! so SIMPLE. Thank you for your help.Good work.
One thing to keep in mind...no matter what laptop it is the manuf. site is the ONLY site you should try drivers from.Thank you! Good advice because I was a little desperate and considered downloading from another site. I WON'T.