NIC Driver won't install

[Rick Rice]

My Dell 4500S was working fine, and I was getting on the
Internet via cable modem without any problems. Then I
couldn't connect to the internet. After troubleshooting
cable modem and router for problems (and seeing that my
son could get out to the Internet through his Sony
Playstation Network adapter hooked up to the same cable
modem via the router) and finding none, I determined to
call Dell.

After attempting to uninstall and reinstall the network
card driver (a RealTek card) unsuccessfully (it won't let
me uninstall the driver, saying the driver is needed for
booting), they sent me a new NIC card. But that one won't
install either. The hardware wizard sees the NIC card,
but the install fails when it tells me that it can't load
the driver. Drivers for both the old and the new are
native to XP according to Dell.

Dell now suggests a complete Windows XP reinstall, which
I'd like to avoid doing. Dell tells me that a Windows XP
repair may cause additional problems and that I should go
straight to a reinstall.

Any help out there would be greatly appreciated.

Rick Rice