airmon-ng finds NO wireless cards

[cayenne]

Hello all,
I've actually been successfully been using Backtrack 2 for awhile now, but, all of a sudden, nothing on that or BT3 (about to try BT4 on another box) works for me any more.

I was testing with a Toshiba Satellite 1805. I had a Linksys version 1 wusb54gc usb wireless card. It worked great for about a year on this laptop with BT2. Recently, I started messing with it again, no changes that I know of (this is an older used laptop I was given)...for awhile, laptop seemed a little flaky, but, would come up. Then, when running aireplay-ng, power levels would only show up as -1.
Now...the laptop does not find the card at all. airmon-ng show NO devices.

I thought the card might be bad, so returned it, and got a new one..this time, is a version 3 of the same wusb54gc.
This card is also not found....light does not light on the wirless usb. I thought maybe it would help to 'start' it with windows...I put the new linksys in a XP box, ran the linksys wizard..it found the usb card...lights it up, and it was looking good.
Still, the toshiba doesn't see it.

So, thinking it might BE the laptop.

I burned a BT3 cd, and booted a desktop dell dimension 8200 up with the live cd. It comes up...and IT will not see the linksys card at all either when I do airmon-ng. Nothing...nada...zilch.

Now, when I do lsusb on the laptop and the desktop, they both show the linksys in the usb slot.

I got ahold of a couple of other usb wirless devices to see if I could get BT to see ANYTHING.

I put in a dlink dwl-122, and a motorola wu830g...just to see if they would be recognized at all.
They aren't seen either.

I'm just puzzled what might have happened...what to try next. I know the linksys before , the version 1 when I had it...was found automatically...it was listed under rausb0. It worked..injections and everything.

Now..I can't get a version of BT to recognize or see ANY usb wireless on either of 2 boxes I'm trying...new cards, old cards, anything.

I can't believe they are all bad...so, is it some stupid user error....something I'm forgetting?

Any advice or suggestions greatly appreciate.

cayenne

[Barry]

Does iwpriv find anything?