Vista - The system couldn't find the file specified.

After the system recovery both network adapters on my ASUS notebook running
Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit stopped working. The adapter is Atheros L2
Fast Ethernet 10/100Base-T Controller (original drivers, they were working
just fine before).
Well, not stopped entirely at all, it still manages to connect to well-known
wi-fi networks, acquire an IP and the network actually 'works'. But when I
want to enter the IP manually (not use DHCP) I just can't do it since the
property tab of a network connection contains nothing but "Client of
Microsoft Networks", even the adapter name is just blank. (can printScreen
it if you want).

I tried nearly everything, uninstall drivers (even delete them), update but
still it 'somehow' everytime loads the 'rotten' drivers, it manages to tell
the name of the adapter, yet then it fails with the error message 'The
system couldn't find the file specified'.

I'm quite desperate now, it seems there's a rotting tomato somewhere in the
kernel.

What do I do?

Thank you for any help.

PS.: Already tried this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940199/en-us -
didn't work.