i recently replaced my hard drive on my computer. i didn't do any backing up because i had files stored on an external hard drive. i installed windows on the new one, and when i tried to install the drivers for my gigabyte 78LMT-S2P motherboard, the ethernet driver appears to install but an error message appears saying 'the realtek network controller was not found. if deep sleep mode is enabled please plug the card.' i have tried turning my computer off completely and unplugging it for a while. that didn't work. i tried to go to device manager but theres not even a network adapters category. just 'other devices' under that is the ethernet controller. but there's like no settings to play around with because the driver wasn't installed completely I'm guessing. I'm running windows 7 64 bit.
Do not attempt to manually update the driver as it will fail, simply unplug the device and plug it back in to switch it over to 'Ethernet' mode; you may also run the Realtek (RTK) Installer and then hot plug the USB adapter (Figure 3). This is how the adapter is enumerated in Device Manager after the driver installation (Figure 4.