Phoneline Network Woes

[neovia]

I've got 3 PCs, all with LinkSys Home Phoneline Network cards (HPN100). One runs Win98, the other 98SE, and the latest, ME. The home network was running fine, until the drive crashed on the one running 98SE. I bought a new drive, reinstalled 98SE, and now can't get the other two computer icons to appear in Network Neighborhood, in spite of moving around the NIC, display adapter, and modem cards in this PC. I usually get the "Unable to browse the network. The network is not accessible." message. At times, I have gotten the one icon to appear, but never the other two. Yet, I'm able to "find" the other computers if I use the "Find" function, so I can access files on other computers from anywhere on the network. I used the Home Networking Wizard (from the Win ME machine) on this machine (after which I have not even gotten its own icon to appear in Network Neighborhood). I have verified that the protocols and other network components are the same on all the machines, including the workgroup, and all have unique names.

I need help, as the time I'm spending troubleshooting this problem is driving not only myself but my wife (and kids) batty. Some details:
Win ME machine- HP Pavilion XT 868, Athlon 1.2GHz, 192MB, 80GB
Win 98SE - Packard Bell Platinum 6700, 333Mhz, 96MB, 15GB
Win98 - no-namer, 300Mhz, 32MB, 17GB

[cobra]

just 4 fun
reinstall tcp/ip and make sure NetBeui is installed.

[WickedLittleSlaveBoy]

it sounds to me like you should reinstall the MS client on the machine with the problems....it sounds like, among other things, it's never getting the browse list from the master browser. make sure all of the machines are on the same subnet(or have IPX/SPX compatible protocol or NetBEUI on all of the computers, but this isn't really a desirable solution) and you might be able to get it working by adding the remote machines(especially the master browser) into the LMHOSTS file with the #PRE extension to preload the machines into the netbios cache on boot(or via nbtstat -R). it can make 2 non-WINS enabled domains see each other, so it might work with a workgroup or whatever. of course, this wouldn't work all that well if your machines are receiving addresses from a DHCP server.

[neovia]

Thanks - it appears to have worked! I appreciate the guidance...