Installing VirtualBox on XP Pro SP3 removed my NIC ???

mikehas80d · Post by **mikehas80d** » 29. Jan 2009, 16:25

Hello everyone. I have a Dell E5400 laptop running WinXP Pro SP3 with a Dell 1510 wireless connection and a Broadcom 57xx Gigabit Integrated NIC. I installed the newest version of VirtualBox and created a VM for Ubuntu 8 with it. I normally use my wireless connection and everything appeared to be working normally. Last night, when I went to plug in hardwired thru the Broadcom connection, I noticed that the Broadcom NIC wasn't working. The Broadcom NIC device isn't even showing up in the device manager anymore! I reimaged the drive back to a time before VirtualBox and it was there and worked fine. I installed VirtualBox and it disappeared! Poof! This is a brand new laptop, so I doubt there's anything weird with my config.

Has anyone heard of this or know why this is happening? I tried to reinstall the Broadcom device drivers and application. It installed fine, but it's still not showing up. It doesn't even give a MAC or show that it exists in a ipconfi /all.

Thank you for anyone who can shed some light on this issue for me!
Mike

Post by **Sasquatch** » 30. Jan 2009, 21:00

What if you remove VB and reboot, do you get your NIC back? If you do, then please try to install VB without the Network support. You will lose the ability to use Host Interface Networking, which makes it possible to let your VM behave like a normal computer on your network.