Hi, I have a weird problem with a fresh install of XP Pro. I bought 2 larger hard disks. I installed one and copied some data onto it from the old disk. Then I removed the old disk and installed the 2nd new disk on which I intended to put XP. I created a couple of partitions with the XP CD on the disk that I intended to put the system partition on and tried to install XP Pro on the system partition. It wouldn't let me and eventually I realised that somehow the disk I'd intended to hold the system partition (the second of the 2 newly installed disks) had become labelled as the G drive and the firstly installed new disk (the one with the data I'd copied on) had become labelled as the C drive. I got around this problem by disconnecting the data drive and rebooting. The system disk was now labelled as the C drive and I could proceed with the XP install, which I did. Once installed, I switched off and reconnected the data drive. Reboot went fine and XP came up quickly. Before I connected up the cable modem I installed the free version of Zone Alarm and my anti-virus, plus XP SP1 from CD. These are all present on the old harddisk and don't give any trouble. However, the installation on the new disks rapidly boots, but then takes over a minute to initialise the firewall and antivirus (on the old disk it takes around 5-10 seconds). This is frustrating enough, but I now haven't got any internet connectivity. I cannot ping my ISP's DNS servers at all. I have tried cycling the modem (switching off, waiting 20 secs then switching on again before booting up the PC again), I have tried repairing the broadband connection (which fails) and I have tried deactivating the firewall. The XP firewall is not on, nor is ICS. The internet settings are correct and the internet connection icon in the system tray, when clicked, says it is connected. But nothing works! If I simply switch off, remove the new disk and replace it with the old one, everything fires up and the internet works fine. Weird or what? The only thing I can think of is that maybe the mucking about with the disk identities just prior to installing XP has somehow (but goodness knows how!) screwed things up. Before I go through the reinstall process again tonight I'd like to find out if anyone has encountered anything similar to this problem, or if anyone has any suggestions, as I'm not convinced that a reinstall is going to cure anything. Oh yes, the other thing is that the install on the old disk detected most things ok, including my graphics card and monitor, but the latest install missed about 6 things, including the graphics card and monitor. Odd. Any comments gratefully received! Cheers, Roger.

Do one thing forme and tell me what you get. In the command prompt, type ipconfig /release (note space before slash). After that response comes up, type ipconfig /renew. Tell me what the answer is. Thanks.

Will do, although I'm fairly sure I tried it last night. Indidentally, I'm not sure but I think using the "repair connection" option does this amongst other things. Cheers, Roger.

Oops! Sorry, forgot to reply. I did try the ipconfig /release and then the renew. I forget the exact error message, but basically it said something along the lines of "nothing to release" and "failed to renew". Eventually I tracked down what the problem was - instead of setting the local IP address on the LAN as 192.nnn.nnn.nnn I think I'd set it to 194.nnn.nnn.nnn, which would have conflicted with the internet connection. Cheers, Roger.