How can I fix the Media State - Media Disconnected?

Oh thank you. Just figured out my laptop had the same problem.  Your fix work. Thanks so much

Have you tried resetting the link speed/ Duplex mode to 10mbps/full duplex ? I had the same error for months while trying to ressurect my pc and could not figure it out until i read somewhere that most of the older NIC's only supported that setting an sometimes will not function if  the setting is "auto negotiation".

Click start, right click on "my computer" and select properties. Click the "Hardware Tab" and select "Device Manager". Click on the "+" sign next to network adapters to expand it and right click the NIC, select properties an in the advanced tab, scroll down to  Link speed/duplex mode and click on it. Set the value in the box on the right side of the page, click OK, to see if it solved your issue.

Hope it helps.

Hi!  I'm having the same problem.  I'm working on my brother-in-law's computer which he is trying to revive with a new hard drive, etc.  He can see the networks available but when he see's mine (on my hotspot) or their own hotspot, I get this message; "The network password needs to be 40 bits or 104 bits depending on your network configuration. This can be entered as 5 or 13 ascii characters or 10 or 26 hexadecimal characters".  When I updated his Dell driver for his wireless network card, and installed SP3 for XP, I restarted everything.  Still didn't help.  I went to the command prompt, typed in ipconfig and it is showing "media disconnected."  

I've followed your steps above, but do NOT see NIC, per say, but did right click on the wireless network adapter, and there were no options to change the link speed/duplex, etc.  Now what? Thanks for your help!

I cannot believe it.  It worked like a miracle!

Have you tried resetting the link speed/ Duplex mode to 10mbps/full duplex ? I had the same error for months while trying to ressurect my pc and could not figure it out until i read somewhere that most of the older NIC's only supported that setting an sometimes will not function if  the setting is "auto negotiation".

Click start, right click on "my computer" and select properties. Click the "Hardware Tab" and select "Device Manager". Click on the "+" sign next to network adapters to expand it and right click the NIC, select properties an in the advanced tab, scroll down to  Link speed/duplex mode and click on it. Set the value in the box on the right side of the page, click OK, to see if it solved your issue.

Hope it helps.

My problem is already fixed, but thanks for the help. After going through different settings, I decided to do a factory reset on my router, so restore all the original settings, and then would try to reconnect to it again.

Thanks anyway.