Question : XP pro, two network cards, ping network ok, no internet URGENT!

ok, this is a huge problem, and goes way beyond my expertise. I have tried everything i know about to get this fixed.  I'll give all the information i know...

I have a P3 laptop running XP pro.  It has a built in ethernet card that works just fine.  I have been using my wired connection to access my router and broadband internet for quite sometime now.

However, I will be doing some traveling, and I got quite interested in wireless networks for their capabilities to access public "hotspots".  In order to take advantage of this unique techonology, I bought a D-Link 2.4GHz 802.11b standard card.

I personally don't have a wireless network here at home, so I the first time i installed the card brought me trouble.  I maintained my wired connection to the internet, and installed the card according to the directions.  This brought a downturn to my wired network.  I could no longer utilize any network options through the wires. nothing, not internet, not file sharing, nothing.  And, since i don't have a WAP, i couldn't access anything through my wireless card.

This was bad, so i used system restore to get me back before the installation and everything was fine.

I know that it is possible to have a wireless and wired card in my computer at the same time, so I was determined to get it to work.

My friend has a wireless network, so i went over to his house to get it working.  I first disabled my wired network, then installed my wireless card.  WHen I did that, I could access all of his wireless computers through the wireless network.  BUT... I COULD NOT ACCESS THE INTERNET!! I tried every command, every option, everything to try and get acces to the internet.  I tried diagnosing with the ping command.  I could ping the router, everycomputer on the netwrok, my DNS server, but not a internet IP or domain name. no internet apps would connect either.  I tried using the "repair" option in network connections, and i get the error message, "could not flush ARP cache".  So i did it manually through the command prompt, and still nothing.  I tried doing a static IP and DNS server, nothing.  I am able to get a IP from the router through DHCP and a DNS server entry, BUT NOT INTERNET!

please help!  I am going crazy.. i'm thinking about re-formating my drive, but i am not sure if that would help my situation.

Answer : XP pro, two network cards, ping network ok, no internet URGENT!

Okay. In Q. 5 you state that you completely disabled your "wired" NIC before you installed the "wireless" NIC. Then you answered my question about both cards being active you replied:

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"no, i installed the wired card, and lost connectivity with the wireless. I needed the internet, so i uninstalled the card, and low and behold, i couldnt access the internet through wired either.  so to get back to where i was, i had to use system restore."
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Part of the problem, based on your responses above is that ONE) you don't have a WAP in your house. You disabled your "wired" NIC before you installed your "wireless" NIC , then when you needed to get to the Interenet you couldn't. The reason's you couldn't, based on your answers above are because one you don't have a WAP and two you disabled your "wired" NIC.  You know that the wireless card needs a WAP. You know that a wired NIC needs to be active before it can communicate on the network. So what you need to do is create two hardware profiles. You didn't do this.

IPCONFIG - Restatement : If both cards are active you should have two set's of IP Configuration  information. If one card is disabled you should only have one set of IP Configurations parameters, depending on which NIC is active. The NIC's cannot have the same IP Address (I'm pretty sure they can't) so you should see different IP's for your NICs.
Based on my explaination above what are you seeing when you run IPCONFIG /ALL ? Your response above:
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"when i run ipconfig, i get everything.  DHCP, DNS, sub mask, IP, everything is correct. "
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doesn't give us anything to work with. How do you know everything is correct? If everything is correct then you should be connecting to the internet. Right?

This is really starting to look like a Hardware Profile setup problem. Either the wireless NIC IS ACTIVE and the wired NIC IS NOT ACTIVE or the wireless NIC IS INACTIVE and the wired NIC IS ACTIVE. Thats the way it's got to be. I'm sure of this.