Hi, I've just recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 3521 laptop which came with a Ubuntu installation. For obvious reasons I shifted to Windows 7 x64 Ultimate but immediately my machine no longer detected networks. In fact, I can only see the option to use wired connection now (after installing some drivers from Dell) in the system tray network notification. I've already tried all drivers downloaded from the website, one package simply ended with an error (I checked the log which stated my platform wasn't supported, which is odd given that the driver was listed for my machine!). And another halts at a screen asking me to switch on Bluetooth via the wireless button (Fn+F2), whereby even after switching it on the installation would not continue. What's even more odd is that Bluetooth seems to be working (I get the icon in the system tray). The previously mentioned network drivers are at ~200 and ~300mb respectively and I've also tried the third listed driver of a much smaller size, which installed fine. As far as I can see, I now have wired connectivity only (for internet) as the machine shows no support otherwise.
Immediately after I encountered my first round of problems I checked under Device Manager and it had listed some devices with no drivers. After installing some of the drivers from Dell I still have 1/4 problematic devices without a driver, which is a "Network Controller". Windows update has not found drivers either. I truly do not know the extent of the complication. All I can trace it back to is when a vendor at a shop (where I had Windows installed) deleted/formatted a partition listed as Dell OEM of around 300mb to allow me to have more partitions. He stated I could get this online anyways, now I do not know if critical/irreplaceable software has been compromised. Please, Please help me. I will gladly provide any further information.
Thank you.