Networking Woes

[Stidham]

Hi,

Here's my dilemma. I've got two pc's, (more but I want to get these two working first then I'll worry about those.)

On one I'm using as a file server and a small webserver.) It's connected via a switch to my router to my cable modem and everything there works fine. Running WinXP Pro SP2 firewall turned off)

My other pc is is just used for surfing and I have some 2 external harddrives connected to via usb. It can get out to the net fine. They both are in a workgroup called MSHOME (originial I know). Running WinXP Pro SP2 firewall turned off)

Here's where it gets tricky.

on the first pc when I go to 'View network computers.' It sees the second pc. I can't ping it though and I can't get to my files on that machine. And on the second pc all I can do is get out to the net. I can't see anything on my local network.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Dave

[AlwaysUp]

First off do you have File and printer sharing enabled? If so, have you given a share name to a resource, such as a drive, directory, folder or printer? Just seeing the other computer on your workgroup doesn't mean you have shared anything.

[Stidham]

Yep, everything is shared.

I get a message that says. MSHOME is not accessable. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact you admin........

[Ob1]

im guessing it is prompting you for a username and password to access this shared resource? try typing guest for username/password at login.

setup your network by putting the same user account on both pc's then use the same username and password on both.

[ffreeloader]

on the first pc when I go to 'View network computers.' It sees the second pc. I can't ping it though and I can't get to my files on that machine. And on the second pc all I can do is get out to the net. I can't see anything on my local network.

1. Are you pinging by IP address or name? Can you ping from pc 2 to pc1?

2. Have you checked to see if you have inadvertently disabled sending netbios broadcasts on either machine? That would lead to not being able to see the pc on which netbios broadcasts have been disabled.

3. Have you used a packet sniffer such as ethereal to see what is happening at the packet level? If not install ethereal, it's free, and you should see netbios and arp broadcasts from both machines during a 5 - 10 minute ethereal capture session. If you don't then you know where to start looking.

You should also attempt to connect to the one machine you can see during the capture session. The packets between the two machines will not be encrytped and you should be able to see exactly what is going on. Microsoft's error messages aren't always very informative.

4. Make sure, if you are running static IP addresses that you haven't inadvertently put the two machines in different address blocks, i.e. 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.2.1 with 255.255.255.0 netmasks. If you do that you won't be able to connect between the two or ping between the two either. You can also lose connectivity in your situation if you inadvertently use different subnet masks on the two machines. That places the two machines in different logical networks and without each having a gateway to the other's subnet they can't communicate. I've done that one to myself when I first started playing with networking concepts and it confused me for a while.

[Ob1]

also make sure you have all of the windows updates installed on both machines

[Gizmo]

Also, switch off any and all software firewalls on both machines.

EDIT: Whoops, noticed you already did that. Sorry.

[Ob1]

follow these steps:
http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=136500

[Stidham]

Thanks for all your help guys. It ended up me being stupid. I forgot to enable file and printer sharing on the one machine. (I could of sworn I did that).

Thanks again.

Dave