I have a Belkin Pre-N (model F5D8010) that I am trying to use with Mandriva 2007. I used the driver that the ndiswrapper (version 1.21) wiki suggested and ndiswrapper states “driver installed, hardware present”, but when I use the utility to configure the interface it gives me two errors, “Unable to find the ndiswrapper interface!” and “Firmware files are required for this device.” and none of the lights come on as the wiki stated should happen. Below is my system log for during the time I used the configuration utility.
12/09/2006 06:27:21 AM host drakconnect[10488] Found settings for driver "ndiswrapper" in category "network::connection::wireless"
12/09/2006 06:27:21 AM host drakconnect[10488] No kernel_module package for module "ndiswrapper" is required, skipping
12/09/2006 06:27:21 AM host drakconnect[10488] Required tools package for module "ndiswrapper" is already installed, skipping
12/09/2006 06:27:21 AM host drakconnect[10488] running: dmidecode
12/09/2006 06:27:23 AM host drakconnect[10488] Thirdparty package ndiswrapper-firmware (firmware) is required but not available
12/09/2006 06:27:31 AM host drakconnect[10488] running: rmmod ndiswrapper
12/09/2006 06:27:31 AM host drakconnect[10488] running: /sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper
12/09/2006 06:27:31 AM host drakconnect[10488] running: /sbin/modprobe -n ndiswrapper

Thank you in advance for any suggestions

- J.Falling

Download and install ndiswrapper-firmware? When it tels you 3 times it needs firmware it's not lying to you.