do I need to re-install from scratch?

[Richard Lyons <richard@the-place.net>]

Can anyone advise me?  I installed Woody from CD on a laptop without 
an internet connection.  Now, when I plug in the NIC (PCcard), I 
cannot get any connection - when I try 
# ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.7 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
I get
SIOCSIFADDR: No such device
eth0: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
SIOCSIFNETMASK: No such device
eth0: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device

If I hot-plug it while the system is up, it says
cs: cb_alloc(bus 7): vendor 0x10ec, device 0x8139
so it knows it is there.
I have configured /etc/hosts, /etc/network/interfaces, and so on.

Do I need to redo the whole install, or configure something else?

-- 
richard