wireless enabled by radio kill switch? SOLVED!

[katej]

First off ... Help!
I'm using Linux Mint 7 on a Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop. (more info to follow as im not on my laptop now and can't get wireless card specifics) I initially got my wireless/bluetooth working, however a few nights ago I was in the terminal and looking to close Rhythmbox when I accidently used a "kill" command and terminated something important. Not only do my wireless functions not work on the Linux side they also don't work on the Windows side now! Does any one know how to reactivate (?) my wireless functions? Please help if you can. Thank you!

okay I think it has something to do with this message I got in the log file viewer:
May 29 20:50:24 Katej-laptop NetworkManager: <info> wireless now enabled by radio kill switch
May 29 20:50:28 Katej-laptop NetworkManager: <info> Found radio Killswitch rfkill1 (at /sys/devices/virtual/rfkill/rfkill1) (driver <unknown>)
May 29 20:50:35 Katej-laptop NetworkManager: <info> wireless now disabled by radio kill switch

I also just ran in the terminal: rfkill list and got this
0: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN
soft blocked: No
Hard blocked: Yes

1: dell-bluetooth: Bluetooth
soft blocked: no
hard blocked: Yes

what does that mean???

[Losgann]

i don't know why a mistake in wireless configuration in Linux would make your hardware not work under Windows, but when you get a chance to get back on your laptop, what happens when you type "iwconfig" in a terminal? Does your wireless connection show up?

[katej]

lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 IEEE 802.11 Nickname: ""
Access Point: Not-Associated

eth1_rename no wireless extensions

[katej]

also how do you turn the kill switch on/off? I read somewhere that for a dell computer you can press fn + F2 but that didn't work for me...

[katej]

Figured it out. The switch was off on my laptop. I'm a ditz. Thanks for the help!