Swapping Hard drives between same laptops and WIFI does not work

[RetrogradePAK]

Our office is using different types of Lenovos, namely X61, X201, X200, T500, T510 and T420. We use Windows 7 enterprise. Sometimes we need to swap the hard drives between similar machines, suppose one goes dead, after swapping, the laptop works fine but the darn WIFI does not work, no matter what we try, driver re-installation, etc, nothing works and at the end we have to rebuild the whole OS. Can anyone help plzzzzz, solving this WIFI issue will save us several hours of OS rebuild time

 

[FredWagner]

I suspect the cause is the MAC address of the WiFi card no longer matches the PC name that came with the hard drive. If the drive came from a machine where the hardware failed, try putting the drive in an external USB-connected enclosure, and copy the necessary files to a machine which is working on your network. The details of that depend on your app - check the the vendor or programmer who supports the apps to see what other precautions you'll need to take.

Fred Wagner

 

[DrB0b]

Have you tried uninstalling the Wifi Driver off the HDD before you move it to the other machine, then reinstalling with a new driver?

Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it NOW.

 

[rclarke250]

Windows 7 will go out and locate the new driver if connected through the LAN. At least it did when I moved my wireless card from my T400 to my wife's S-10 netbook as a test to see if her card was faulty. Windows 7 detected the new wireless card, I let it search for drivers, and 5 minutes later after a reboot, and disconnecting the LAN cable, it was on the network asking for the password.

By chance are you using the trusted platform module in these laptops? And if you delete the hardware and then allow it to be rediscovered and windows to load the drivers itself,what happens?

 

[RetrogradePAK]

sorry, tried every thing possible, even tried installing an external USB WIFI but even that shows the same symptoms..... (appearing in device manager and in connection manager) but no connection and signal

 

[cdogg]

We have a slightly similar issue where the WPA key is lost when moving hard drives to an identical model. However, after re-entering that key it works fine. So it's not quite to the same degree!

You certainly shouldn't have to reimage the laptop to get that feature working. Perhaps there is some security in place that expects to see as specific MAC on the WLAN device.

1. Do you have BitLocker enabled?
2. Do you let Windows 7 manage the WLAN connection, or do you use 3rd-party software for that (such as the utility that would come with the Lenovo?
3. On several newer HP models, there is a known issue with wireless getting disabled. The only way to enable it (aside from reimaging) is to reset the BIOS to factory default or uncheck the "wireless button state" option under Device Options. Not sure if this applies in your situation, but it may be worth at least resetting the BIOS.

-Carl
"The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be."

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[RetrogradePAK]

thanks all for your help, it seems that that there is some kind of a "till death do us part" wedding vow between the WIFI and the OS services that interfaces with the WIFI itself.....

 

[DrB0b]

For the proverbial "S&G's", if you have time, could you uninstall the Wifi adapter out of one which is working along with the driver and take one out of an imaged laptop that is having troubles and try to install it? At my old job, I would piece used laptops together and had no issue using any wifi card with any laptop, even going between same models, although the OS install wasnt from an image(were Im expecting the issue to reside). If you can successfully install the "nonworking" wifi card in a "good" imaged laptop, then its not a wifi card issue.

Im curious on this one, so if you dont have time to satisfy that curiosity its completely understandable.

Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it NOW.

 

[rclarke250]

Lenovo uses a "white list" in the bios to allow only those wifi cards with the "correct" firmware to interface properly. But going from one Lenovo to another should be ok.