I have my PC and laptop connected with a crossover ethernet cable but the connection status is "limited or no connectivity".

How do I get the two machines to communicate so I can backup to PC?

Thanks

 

Which Operating system do you have on each machine and do you usually use these machines on another network? i.e would you have staic ip's setup?

 

As per AVZ mentioned. You need to setup static IP addresses for each PC.

i.e.
PC 1 IP 192.168.0.1
PC 2 IP 192.168.0.2

 

Both machines are XP.

How do I set up IP addresses?

 

go to control panel, network connection, and right click on the Locla Area Connection and choose properties, scroll down the list to Internet Protocol TCP/IP and click on it, then click on properties, enter the ip address in, (must be a different one on each machine, 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2 as mentioned previously are ok) put a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 in it should do this automatically anyway, then click ok, once done on both machines it should be ok !

 

Cheers Ian, done all that

It now says LAN connected, firewalled...

How do I now make the two machines "see" each other and exchange files etc?

 

may need to run the network connection wizard on each machine Start > All Programs > Accessories > Communications > Network Setup Wizard

Just follow through the steps and make sure the Workgroup name is the same on each machine, enable file and printer sharing, that should allow you to see each machine in the network places under Entire Network > MS Windows Networking, all you need to do is share a folder, right click on the folder in Explorer and click on sharing and security, enable sharing and that should be it really ! i may have missed some steps but it should be workable from here !

 

Cheers matey