HP LAN

Somebody should.

Most likely you have wiped the driver for the network adapter. Have a look in Control Panel, System, Hardware, Device Manager and see if a network adapter is listed and whether it's yellow flagged as faulty.

Probably best to look on the CD which came with the computer for the driver pack for your computer or go to HP's support site and look for the same.

Fihart;

the adapter if flagged yellow as you suspected but I have lost the original CD. I tried downloading the driver for the net but also to no avail. can you give me some direction?

You tried downloading to no avail -- or your downloaded the driver but it didn't help ?

Sorry to be such a pedant.