MJW

I have a small office network consisting of 3 PCs connected to a Netgear D835G modem/router, but one of the machines can't seem to communicate to the others. I took one of the machines as a spare to a LAN party and ever since then it doesn't appear on the network. In the list of attached devices in the router's admin page it comes up as 'unknown', whereas before the machine name came up.
The offending machine can still get on the net, and I can sometimes see the other machines in My Network places, but when I try to connect to them I'm told I 'might not have permission to use this network resource' and 'the network path was not found'. All the machines are in the same workgroup, and file/printer sharing is enabled - the only firewall being used is the hardware one on the router. Does anyone have any suggestions ?

Nick

Is this XP?

Is file & printer sharing enabled?

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Are you using DHCP? or have you your own static IP set-up (for example: 192.1.1.1 on a Class C Sunbet of 255.255.255.0 )

If the latter have you checked the subnet and IP are in the same range as the other PCs?

Try this if on DHCP:

Click start then choose run. Type cmd and press return. In the new window that should have opened type the following:

ipconfig

Have a look at the settings all the PCs should have some sort of unison.

Also try:

Right click the My Computer Icon (if in classic mode) choose Properties. Then Computer Name and check the name of your PC and Workgroup are correct.

Also try:

From another PC on the network click start and then run. Type:

\\<computername you wish to connect to>\c$

example if PC you wish to connect to is called worka then it would be:

\\worka\c$


Hope this helps?

MJW

Thanks for all the suggestions so far.

All machines run Win XP Pro SP2 and file / printer sharing is enabled on all machines.
The router assigns IPs by DHCP so all machines are 192.168.0.xx and they're all on the same subnet - I haven't assigned any reserved IPs. I've checked all the IPs using ipconfig and they're all the same except the last applet. I even tried fitting a new NIC to the offending machine (which needed doing anyway as the previous one was an old 10Mbps one with a bnc connector).

I checked the machine and workgroup names and they're both correct, and even re-ran the Network ID wizard. The curious thing about this is that my machine name does not appear in the 'Attached Devices' list on the router, though the other machine names do. The MAC ID is listed and the device is just listed as 'unknown'.

When I try //machine/c$ from one of the other PCs it says 'network path not found'. However I can ping the IPs both to and from the offending machine and get a response. It's doing me bloody head in !! Please keep the suggestions coming !

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Ahhhh... SP2 you say. Have you disabled the MS firewall on your NIC? This has caught us out at work many a time.

Also have you granted enough permissions on each of your shared folders and/or disks?


The MS auto config also may not be the wise solution here as it sometimes never works correctly. Sometimes it can bridge a NIC with a Firewire connection.

MJW

Yes, the Windows Firewall is disabled - like you say, it caught me out a while back so it was the first thing I checked !
When you say 'enough' permissions for shared folders/disks does this mean there's a limit somewhere that can be edited ?
I can see the other machines on the My Network Places, when I view workgroup computers (can't see the shared folders though) but I just can't get to them. The message I get is :

xx is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions. The network path was not found.

jpor

iTrader: (1)

I currently use XP Pro. When you right click the Disk and/or folder there is an option in the pull down box for "Sharing & Security". In there you can set share permissions to what you have right clicked on. This is where users and Computes are granted Network Access permissions. you may need to change this to the PCs in your network environment so that each PC is granted Network Access rights. If you want try setting this to "Everyone" to start with.