Originally Posted by nichomach
Is the card actually seeing that there's a wireless network there? I mean, the media disconnected message usually just means "I'm not connected to a network", and appears under the listing for a specific network adapter; is the actual adapter listed when you do the ipconfig /all?
If it is, the next thing I'd check is whether in the properties for the wireless card, it's set to use the same IBSS channel number as the router. If it is, just as a sanity check I'd see whether the SSID broadcast is on on the router (if it's off, you could always just temporarily re-enable it).
If the laptop has a wired connection as well (RJ45 ethernet socket), I'd try plugging that into an ethernet port on the router and see whether it gets connected and handed an IP address then.