Failed Driver Update = Deleted Driver!?

[Trav]

Good Day,

So today my XP 32-bit system suffered from a crash, and in the spirit of following Window's instructions for troubleshooting the issue I loaded up the Windows Update system. I set up the system for an update, updating the driver for my Nvidia GeForce 8500GT because that was listed as a possible cause of a hardware compatibility issue that might have been the cause of the initial crash. Installation of the normal Windows updates went down without a hitch, however the GeForce update failed. On reboot the system couldn't load any web pages, so I ran the Windows built in network diagnostic program. The program stated that I currently had no network card installed on my system.

I was perplexed, and decided the best course of action was to run system restore. After running the system restore point I got a blue screen of death indicating stop errors with a statement "IRQL not less or equal". After this I booted the system in safe mode and reversed the system restore. The system is now stable once more but I still seem to be missing drivers for my network card.

I have a system back up from two months ago that should be loaded with the driver I'm looking for, but I have no idea where to look on the drive for the driver I'm missing. Any advice or help that could be provided would be highly appreciated.

Thanks for your time,

~Trav

Update:

I found a driver while browsing the internet that looks to be an Nvidia Lan driver system published in 2006. Could this be what I'm looking for? I know the update that failed was published in 2008...

http://download.cnet.com/Lan-Driver-nVidia-Ver-8-62-zip/3000-2112_4-162233.html

Update the 2nd:

I think I have found both the update that caused this mess and the driver that use to be installed:

Failed Update?:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_winxp_15.23.html

Working Driver?:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce3_winxp_5.11.html

Update the 3rd:

So I tried running the working driver installation on my machine, and found that it likely is the driver in question because other components (Nvidia Network Manager) are also in the installation package. Unfortunately the driver package fails to load up, saying it is preparing the installation and then nothing more happens.

Update the 4th:

I managed to get my hands on an intriguing program called 3DP from Cnet that did wonders. The program comes with a collection of common network card drivers pre-loaded. All I had to do was uninstall the corrupted driver, reboot, and begin installing for the Nvidia network card with 3DP. I've now managed to back up all of my drivers using Driver Max and am feeling a lot better about the whole situation. However now I've run into some strange issues involving toolbars and add-on's appearing in my browsers that I don't remember installing. In addition Google Chrome failed to run until I reinstalled it into my system. I'm wary, running a Mbam scan as we speak to see if anything comes up.

[Trav]

Problem was resolved via installation of 3DP from cNet. After uninstalling my corrupted ethernet drivers, rebooting, and running the program I was able to bring my Ethernet card back online. An amazing program that saved me sizable amounts of time and money.

[Firefox]

Glad you got it sorted out....