I had a Toshiba laptop that crashed more than a year ago—it wouldn't start up, and it wouldn't even let me reformat the hard drive. I ended up just getting a new computer. A Mac. :)
However, yesterday I decided to try to reformat the old PC. Amazingly, it booted up as if nothing had ever gone wrong.
However, for some reason, I cannot get it online *via my home connection.* It WILL connect to other wireless connections, but no matter what I've tried, I cannot get it to connect to my home connection either wirelessly or directly from the cable.
I have a Belkin F5D6130 wireless router. I was able to get the Toshiba to connect to the Belkin's signal, but it wouldn't allow me to connect to the Internet, even after I "officially" connected it via Belkin's software. I installed the Windows patch that was supposed to resolve SP2 connection issues, but it did nothing. I've fiddled with every setting I could think of to no avail.
Finally, I figured I would just plug the cable in directly so I could at least get online and get the software updates. However, I had the exact same problems, even after rebooting and trying to "repair" the connection.
My Mac iBook connects easily to my home Internet connection both through the Belkin router and through the cable, so I'm pretty sure it's not an ISP issue. But I can't figure out what settings must be goofy on my computer.
In case it's relevant, before the Toshiba crashed, I used Earthlink DSL, which required me to sign in whenever the connection had been broken and was re-established. I now have a cable Internet connection that does not require me to sign in. Is it possible the computer's "home" network connection is still somehow configured for Earthlink??
Any help or advice anyone can offer would be appreciated.