Uninstalling a NIC when it has been removed

  • Thread starter Thread starter GB
  • Start date Start date
G

GB

Hi All,

I am sitting in a bit of a pickle at the moment. One of
my clients has removed the existing nic, without
uninstalling it first, and replaced it with a Gbit one.
Obviously, I was called in cos nothing was working. I had
to give the nic a new address, redo DNS/DHCP/WINS, etc.
but the the old address is still assigned to the old
card. There must be a way to remove the old card (which
doesn't appear anywhere) from the system. Any ideas??

Thanks and regards to all

GB
 
"GB" said in news:[email protected]:
Hi All,

I am sitting in a bit of a pickle at the moment. One of
my clients has removed the existing nic, without
uninstalling it first, and replaced it with a Gbit one.
Obviously, I was called in cos nothing was working. I had
to give the nic a new address, redo DNS/DHCP/WINS, etc.
but the the old address is still assigned to the old
card. There must be a way to remove the old card (which
doesn't appear anywhere) from the system. Any ideas??

Thanks and regards to all

GB
Click to expand...

What happens when you disable the old NIC, if listed, in Device Manager
and reboot? Does it reappear?

Have you checked under the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum registry key to see if
there is still an entry for the old NIC (might be under the PCI subkey)?

Have you rumaged through the %windir%\INF directory to see if there is
still an old .inf file for the old now-gone NIC?
 
Hi Van,

The card does not appear anywhere, but I haven't checked
in the registry or in the INF directory, will certainly do
and keep you posted

thanks for the reply and regards

GB
 
Hi Van,

The card does not appear anywhere, but I haven't checked
in the registry or in the INF directory, will certainly do
and keep you posted

thanks for the reply and regards
Click to expand...

Have you checked in Computer Management, Device Manager and get it to show
all hidden devices ?

I seem to recall it may show up here.

Andy
 
To display hidden devices, non-Plug and Play devices, and devices not
attached to the computer (commonly known as "ghosted" or "phantom" devices)
From a command prompt;

set DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1
then
start devmgmt.msc

Then, use Device Manager to remove or reconfigure these devices. Do not edit
the registry.

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
Microsoft Certified Professional [Windows 2000]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect


:
| Hi All,
|
| I am sitting in a bit of a pickle at the moment. One of
| my clients has removed the existing nic, without
| uninstalling it first, and replaced it with a Gbit one.
| Obviously, I was called in cos nothing was working. I had
| to give the nic a new address, redo DNS/DHCP/WINS, etc.
| but the the old address is still assigned to the old
| card. There must be a way to remove the old card (which
| doesn't appear anywhere) from the system. Any ideas??
|
| Thanks and regards to all
|
| GB
 
my clients has removed the existing nic, without
uninstalling it first, and replaced it with a Gbit one.
Click to expand...

You have inserted, re-inserted, moved, removed, or swapped your NIC card
across various PCI slots without first removing it from the Device
Manager. We both know that's a no-no. It results in a phantom NIC card as
evidenced when another NIC is installed and is reported as Adapter #2.

The "Set DEVMGR..." along with "View Hidden Devices" trick may not work
for you. It didn't for me. The 'phantom' NIC card wasn't really hidden.
'Non-present' may indicate 'yanked', maybe not.

You've got half of your networking subsystem wanting to access a now
phantom card and the other half accessing the current card in the current
PCI slot.

It's going to be messy getting the extra Local Area Connections and/or
the extra Adapters cleaned out of your registry.

I have an article that might point you in the right direction.

http://www.sacpcug.org/archives/0303/tech0303.pdf

I don't know if any of the various registry cleaners will find and clean
references to improperly removed hardware.

Brian Smither
 
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