Thinkpad R51- Network ports inoperable

[thatguyjoe]

I've been given an R51 2883 (Win XP S.P. 2) to look at. I removed some viruses and then took a look at the Device Manager.

The following problems are there:
The Network Controller is missing a driver
All of the network adapters have problems:
Direct Parallel
Infrared Port
Intel Pro/100 VE Network Connection
Intel Pro/100 VE Network Connection- Packet Scheduler Miniport
Novatel Wireless Network Adapter - Packet Scheduler Miniport
WAN Miniport (IP)
WAN Miniport (IP)- Packet Scheduler Miniport
WAN Miniport (L2TP)
WAN Miniport (PPOE)
WAN Miniport (PPTP)

And the infrared device: IBM ThinkPad Infrared Port

I tried going to the Lenovo support page and downloading drivers for these problems, but none of the drivers have been able to install.

I need advice, how can I get this thing connected again?
(There are no restore points from System Restore that will do the job, by the way.)

[carbon_unit]

At boot press F11. See if you can get into Rescue and Recovery. Restore to factory condition.
That should get rid of the windows problems and get everything running again.
Or you can spend a bunch of time trying to fix it.

[thatguyjoe]

thanks for the advice, I tried it just now just in case I missed something before. None of the options offered seem to be a restore. I can choose from:
1. resume normal startup
2. enter the IBM BIOS setup utility
3. choose a temporary startup device

Last time I looked around the BIOS setup utility just in case a system restore option was there, but that doesn't seem like the right area.
that's why I've turned to you guys for help. Better to learn what the long, slow process is than to give up altogether.

[Kyocera]

Definately try what Carbon Unit says. It almost sounds like someone installed another OEM XP on that machine, or the virus' pretty much toasted the registry.

[carbon_unit]

Sounds like your recovery partition is either not working or gone. You probably need a set of recovery discs.