Networking & wireless forum: Problems with my Netgear WG111v3 USB wireless adapter

Hi all, having a problem I hope you can fix. I am using an old notebook while my newer one is in the shop. It's a Compaq Presario 1200. And I have a Netgear WG111v3 USB wirless adapter. I started out with a Belkin F5D 7050 USB wireless adapter, which is what I am using now because I can't keep the Netgear adapter up. I don't like this Belkin because it is constantly dropping the connection and reacquiring.
Anyway, on to the problem. When I first installed the Netgear WG111v3 I was quite happy with it, I got good solid connections and they didn't drop. And neither did the WG111v3 adapter. Then I started getting messages that I was low on disk space and needed to clean some out.
So, I started removing old programs through the add/remove programs option, and started having problems with the Netgear adapter. Now it won't stay connected. When I first start up, it connects and stays up for a while, then the adapter itself fails and I can't get it to come back up. If I reboot, same thing happens, the adapter works fine for a few minutes, then I get that ding noise when a USB device is lost, and I can't get it back up.
None of the programs I removed looked like they would have anything to do with networking or USB, but I must have effected one or the other when one of the programs was removed.
I tried system restore but that didn't work, I couldn't take it far enough back to get back past the problem. The CD Rom drive has failed on this system, so doing a total system reinstall doesn't seem to be possible, unless I can do it through a USB CD Rom which I have.
I have uninstalled and reinstalled the belkin adapter and the Netgear WG111v3 repeatedly but nothing seems to help, it won't recover from this problem. I have tried it with both the belkin adapter installed and the Netgear adapter installed, thinking maybe the Belkin being there would make some file the Netgear WG111v3 needed available. No dice. Then I tried it with the Belkin adapter uninstalled, thinking maybe they created some kind of conflict.
The only thing I can think of is that when I uninstalled those unused programs, it somehow deleted a file or driver that was needed for the Netgear WG111v3 to work correctly like it had been, or corrupted one.
Any ideas how I might fix this problem? Thanks, Steve