Networking starts disabled (using Ethernet card)

[John Hudson <gadgetfan.john@gmail.com>]

I'm more or less a beginner with Linux but have installed Debian Squeeze on 
another PC successfully; on this one, networking shows "Disconnected" after 
every boot (logging on as a standard user, not 'root') and I can only get the 
built-in Ethernet card to connect by disabling wired networking and then re-
enabling. As I want to use the machine as a server, this is pretty useless to 
me - the intention is to use it without a monitor in the long-term, which 
means it won't work at all as things are.

The PC is connected to my router via a CAT5 cable and a Netgear Powerline 
adaptor (the same as the older Dell PC that connected at boot without any 
problems). The puzzling bit is that the network obviously worked during 
installation (booting from a Debian Squeeze setup CD), as various bits of 
extra software were downloaded.

Any thoughts on how I can get the machine to connect to the network 
automatically on boot?

Thanks.