[cherry6]

I am tearing my hair out with this one.

OK I have a Dell Studio laptop running Vista. A few days back it wouldnt start. Well it started as in you could hear it running but there was just a grey screen. I did numerous cold boots and ran startup repair, and then did system restore so it took it back a few days. Used the pc and internet and all was good until I switched it off and tried to restart it the next day. Same thing all over again. Anyway today for the fourth day in a row ran system restore, pc started but couldnt connect to the internet. Used system restore again to restore to an earlier point a few weeks back in case that made any difference but no, still no internet.
My ISP is Virgin and the netgear router is working fine as I am using a different laptop with it. On my network manager page I have a red cross between the laptop and the router.
I dont have an ethernet cable (not one I can find anyway!).
I have run Dells diagnostic tests but it says nothing is wrong so I am completely confused. When I look in Device Manager it has an exclamation mark next to Bluetooth Peripheral Device so not sure whats going on there.
When I click on the cross thats between the pc and the internet it says I either need to plug a cable into the local network adaptor, or automatically get new IP settings for the adaptor or that there is a problem with the router (which cant be as I am using it fine on the other laptop). When I click on the get new IP settings this doesnt help, and nor does resetting IP settings.
Help!!! I am close to throwing the laptop out of the window...and apologies as I am not pc literate so be gentle!