How to repair networking

[doug]

I was running 8.2 stable and kde3.5. Originally I want to install chrome. I 
trying to update the many interlocking components I eventually got to the point 
where I thought I would just start again so I removed all ports.

At this point I lost networking, neither DHCP or manually configuring an IP 
address worked so I put my data on a USB drive and really started over. My 
question is would rebuilding the world likely have worked? If what else should I 
have tried before jumping off the deep end? Thanks for any thoughts

Doug