I successfully configured and have been using ndiswrapper on FC5 for a few months now. Today it suddenly stopped working. An iwconfig would show ESSID

ff/any no matter what I did. I completely uninstalled ndiswrapper and removed the drivers. I recompiled from source, reinstalled the drivers and still the same problem.
This is a dual-boot machine with Windoze-XP due to some minor windoze dependencies. I booted into windows and noticed the wireless card light was off. In linux it is always off when booting starts then comes on when ndiswrapper loads the driver.
I turned on the card in Windows, rebooted into Linux and its suddenly working!!!!!
So apparently there is some sort of bios level dependency with my broadcom card which can only be turned on or off through windows.
Very annoying!!! I hope this post helps.
Scud