Wifi ok on DVD boot, fails when installed

[Davide Barranca]

Hello,
I have the strangest of problems.
I'm installing Linux Lite on my mother's old laptop: I've burned the 3.8 ISO on a DVD (for the machine doesn't accept USB boot, and it's 32bit) and runned the OS from the DVD: flawless WiFi out-of-the-box.

Partitioning, formatting and installing the OS on the HD brings me a grayed out "Wi-Fi Networks" and "Wi-Fi is disabled by hardware switch" flyout menu. Now, it is true that the HP Compaq Presario CQ60 has a physical button that switches on/off the WiFi, but:

1. Pushing the button has no effect – it is always retro-illuminated, which should mean it's on
   
2. It was retro-illuminated by default when the Linux was running from the DVD anyway
   

I am a bit puzzled.
In case it helps, I've run inxi -Nn and the result is a Realtek RTL8101/2/6E for Ethernet, and Qualcomm Atheros AR242x / AR542x for the wifi; driver: ath5k; IF: wlp3s0; state: down.

The output of sudo rfkill list is:

0: phy0: Wireless LAN
              Soft blocked: no
              Hard blocked: yes
1: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
              Soft blocked: no
              Hard blocked: yes

So, to my newbie eyes, the OS fails to understand that the Wifi is already switched on... maybe? And why hadn't had any problem when running from DVD?

Thanks in advance for any guidance you can provide – please remember that I have zero experience with this stuff

Davide