Ricardo Bee

Well it's a winding but happy story in HP laptop land. I still wasn't able to restore the registry because it seems laptop is confused by a portable drive that gets plugged in and out. It won't restore with the drive in or out.

However, it seems the crash was related to the malfunctioning wi fi. The mysterious window appeared again and this time, before it crashed, I was able to identify it as a wireless security system trying to update - Zone Alert. So I searched zone alert components and uninstalled them and HP hums fine.

Feeling pretty cocky then, I turned my attention to trying to fix wayward wi fi that wandered off 7 months ago. But the stink of failure quickly set in and brought ego into check. Groped around and downloaded new drivers from HP. Message I get is "cannot repair connection because no tcp/ip..." Although tcp/ip is set for automatic retrieval, and same settings work fine on hard wire connection.

Bottom line is, HP happy, but if you have any tips on restoring wi fi, I would appreciate it. Thanks TSF and MTT (don't let storms get you down - might bring early skiing!)