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[Gianny]

I just got a new inspiron 8600 to go with my older 8100. I am trying to connect them using firewire to transfer files. I believe I have set up everything right, when I go to "view workgroup computers" on my 8100 it shows both computers, but when I click on the 8600 icon it gives me this message \\mshome 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 permissions. The network path was not found.


What am I doing wrong? On the other computer is the same message except instead of \\mshome is \\usa


Your help will be appreciated.

 

[way more]

Are they using the same operating system? I may have an old 8100 that uses windows ME and it is maddening trying to network it to an XP system.

 

[DarienA]

My first question would be what type of firewall software do you have setup? We had a similar problem and it turned out that Norton IS needed to relearn our home network.

 

[Gianny]

One has Norton Antivirus 2004 and Service Pack 2 the other one older 8100 has Norton Systemworks 2003.

Both of them are on windows xp.

Firewall probably the built it ones in sp2 and the one in the router which I don't believe I ever turned on.

 

[DarienA]

One has Norton Antivirus 2004 and Service Pack 2 the other one older 8100 has Norton Systemworks 2003.

Both of them are on windows xp.

Firewall probably the built it ones in sp2 and the one in the router which I don't believe I ever turned on.

Have you defined username accounts for each PC(that need to be entered when you power the PC up) or are they simply "open"?

 

[Gianny]

I have defined the accounts for both pcs, I am the administrator for both of them.

What could be wrong.

 

[DarienA]

I have defined the accounts for both pcs, I am the administrator for both of them.

What could be wrong.

Well we don't know what's wrong yet that's why we're asking questions....

Some more general questions... same password on both machines?

Do you actually have usernames that are defined as usernames? or are you just using the administrator account itself?

We can start with simply things like disabling the SP2 and XP firewall to see if that's causing the problem, creating a username/password account on both machines giving it administrative rights and then seeing what happens when you try to access the PC's...

You said you definitely have no other software like Zonealarm or anything like that running right? Even if you don't have Zonealarm running is it INSTALLED on either machine? Any firewall software ever installed on either machine even if you don't think it's currently running?

See if any of this is the problem....

http://www.onecomputerguy.com/networking/xp_network.htm

or this:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=318030

Finally browse through this thread for some suggestions:

http://www.thetechguide.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9932

 

[Gianny]

Thanks Darien. It was actually both Norton and IE firewalls that were not allowing me to connect. Thanks

 

[DarienA]

Thanks Darien. It was actually both Norton and IE firewalls that were not allowing me to connect. Thanks

Yeah they are often the problem... Norton is suppose to auto-detect your home network on its own but after a recent brown out my missus tablet stopped connecting to the network... I immediately ran to Norton because I figured it was the culprit(because everything else was working fine)... and it was.

 

[Marty Chinn]

While on the topic of shares, has anyone just had experience where network shares wouldn't work for awhile and then just all of a sudden work for no reason? Like it needed time to break in and finally accept the connection. I just had that trouble again, and all of a sudden the share was showing up without a hitch after spending days trying to figure out the problem. It just doesn't make any sense. I think networking is all screwed up and such a hack job the way they do things currently.

 

[DarienA]

While on the topic of shares, has anyone just had experience where network shares wouldn't work for awhile and then just all of a sudden work for no reason? Like it needed time to break in and finally accept the connection. I just had that trouble again, and all of a sudden the share was showing up without a hitch after spending days trying to figure out the problem. It just doesn't make any sense. I think networking is all screwed up and such a hack job the way they do things currently.

Are you talking about home networks? Ugh.. XP makes setting them up easier but for shares actually working? Not always guaranteed... I don't know what the hell is going on in the background but something is...

 

[Marty Chinn]

Ya with XP. It seems like XP made network shares more of a pain in the ass than easier thani t used to be in Windows. I just added a Network Storage HDD, heh related to the other thread about HDD enclosures, and while the desktop and Xbox could see it just fine, this laptop on wireless was being a pain the ass about it. It would work if I plugged it in wired to the network, but the instant I unplugged it to go wireless it wouldn't be able to detect it. I remember the same issue happening when I was trying to get it to see shared folders on my desktop. Both times it just started working for no reason after screwing around with it for awhile. I eventually gave up, and then like a day later it works. It was weird how the laptop would see my desktop but not this new network storage. I just don't get it sometimes. At least it's working now and I'm loving having a network storage device. No longer need to leave any computer on to share files.

 

[DarienA]

Ya with XP. It seems like XP made network shares more of a pain in the ass than easier thani t used to be in Windows. I just added a Network Storage HDD, heh related to the other thread about HDD enclosures, and while the desktop and Xbox could see it just fine, this laptop on wireless was being a pain the ass about it. It would work if I plugged it in wired to the network, but the instant I unplugged it to go wireless it wouldn't be able to detect it. I remember the same issue happening when I was trying to get it to see shared folders on my desktop. Both times it just started working for no reason after screwing around with it for awhile. I eventually gave up, and then like a day later it works. It was weird how the laptop would see my desktop but not this new network storage. I just don't get it sometimes. At least it's working now and I'm loving having a network storage device. No longer need to leave any computer on to share files.

Do you have your router restricting by MAC addresses? We have ours set up that way and then I manually let it search and add the specific addresses that can "come in" to the network for the wireless we have set up.

 

[Marty Chinn]

I have it set up so only MAC addresses on a list are allowed access to the network wirelessly. I don't see how that would change anything though since if the Laptop can acccess the network and get on the Internet, clearly the router is saying it had a valid MAC address. Getting on the Internet was never an issue for me, it was just getting all the share folders being accessible and the Laptop gave me the most problems. This new desktop gave me some problems when it was hooked on the other side of the bridge, but now that its on this side where it will be anyways, it works just fine.

Edit:

Maybe I should explain my network layout too. The network is split into two rooms: the office and the living room. In the office I have a wireless Linksys 802.11g router hooked up to two desktops and a Linksys network storage adaptor wired to the router. In the living room, I have a wireless bridge that is wired to a switch. Hooked to the switch is the Xbox, GameCube, PS2 and Tivo. Everything out there seems to work just fine. The Xbox in particular uses the network shares off the network storage adaptor to stream media off of. Finally we have a laptop that has built in wireless which we use to give us freedom within our place. Hopefully that explains enough of how I'm laid out.