Found out its not the laptop it the wireless card that is locked. It has 3 sets of pins that a shorted together.
Ok, so I received the Intel Centrino Advanced-N6205 today. I figured I had nothing to lose so I installed the card - fully expecting the laptop not to boot up, or an error message to pop up. Instead, the laptop booted without fault. I installed the driver for the card - and it worked! Quite a pleasant surprise. I wanted to share that bit of news for those who have an HP Pavilion g7-2251dx.