I'll usually run with NAT so you could check that.

However regarding your problem: is your network up while testing? As you have "replicate network state" it is easy to unplug your laptop and forgot that this breaks your VM networking as well.

Other things to check:
- what adapters you see with ifconfig?

This could be a result of cloning:

http://linhost.info/2008/12/missing-vmware-network-adapter/

https://www.airvm.com/help/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/40/4/why-is-my-eth0-device-missing-after-cloning-my-linux-vm

Thank you  ajohnson & sh4d0wmanPP , Problem resolved, after hours of checking, the main culprit was this new  macafee antivirus, that came pre installed with my new dell xps, its home network settings would not allow network adapters to vm's. so i uninstalled it & reinstalled with norton antivirus 2012. fired up backtrack. an ifconfig shows.
eth2   Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0c:29:95:57:84
  inet addr:192.168.1.41  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
  inet6 addr: fe80::20c:29ff:fe95:5784/64 Scope:Link
  UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
  RX packets:475 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
  TX packets:33 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
  collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
  RX bytes:31955 (31.9 KB)  TX bytes:2929 (2.9 KB)
  Interrupt:19 Base address:0x2000

lo     Link encap:Local Loopback
  inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
  inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
  UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
  RX packets:179 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
  TX packets:179 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
  collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
  RX bytes:26266 (26.2 KB)  TX bytes:26266 (26.2 KB)
root@bt:~# ping www.google.com
PING www.google.com (173.194.45.19) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from www.google.com (173.194.45.19): icmp_seq=1 ttl=50 time=166 ms
64 bytes from lis01s06-in-f19.1e100.net (173.194.45.19): icmp_seq=2 ttl=50 time=166 ms
64 bytes from lis01s06-in-f19.1e100.net (173.194.45.19): icmp_seq=3 ttl=50 time=