I have a problem like that:
I have a lapto pcomputer wich HAD an integrated lan. We had a little thunder in here and everything that where connected to network burned down (switshes, network cards, etc.). So the laptop works perfectly except Mandrake can't find the network card so I bought a PCMCIA network adapter and it is realtek8139. Mandrake won't recognize it on this compter but it does on other. RH 9 finds it but when computer boots it says eth0 device seems not to be present delaing initalization ... a bit later it says you are using 8139too driver try 8139too instead??? and network won't start. I log in a root and do /etc/init.d/network restart and it goes up! ... and I cant figure out whats wrong.

Ps. I am a newbie in linux world and sorry about my bad english