General :: Changed Ip Cannot Reconfigure?

I recently attempted to change my ip with terminal using "ifconfig etho <input address>" but failed to annotate the previous address. I restarted the network after appending the network document at "/etc/network/interfaces" and restarted the network "/etc/init.d/network restart". Checking through I found the the IP address was what I changed it too yet the problem was attempting to revert it back.Going through a cycle of editing the network document and restart the network has ended in failure and I am curious if there is a way to reset the configuration for eth0 without reinstallation.