Networking Home, problems

[Scabby]

Please, anyone this is driving me mad!!

I have my laptop and I want to connect this to the PC, I'm using ethernet cable. and a hub (not router) to join these things together.

I HAVE HAD THESE THING WORKING BEFORE SO I KNOW THEY WORK however I had to re initialise the PC and now I cannot get this to run.

so what have I done,

Run network set-up wiz on both, used disk and no go!
checked cables, pinged both IPs no problems, packets read ok
tried to add network place but it comes back with folder appears to be incorrect please choose another.
this is driving me mad because I have looked on the net for answers and as far as I can see I am doing everything correctly but the setup cannot talk to each other.

PC specs
WIN XP home, SP2
IP address 169.254.?.?
subnet mask 255.255.0.0

LAPTOP specs
Win pro, SP2
IP 169.254.??.??
subnet mask 255.255.0.0

Ethernet Specs
5-port 10BASE-2/T Hub
cables are ETL verified to enhanced CAT .5E

anyone please

Phil

[snowmonkey]

Hey Phil,

I see that you have 169.254.xxxx.xxx for IP address on both system.....did you assign those addresses yourself or somehow you go it from a device (router or such) ?? that's the key to your problem (even though you say it used to work before). 169.254.xxx.xxx is the default IP address of any network card if they don't get an IP address from a DHCP server....meaning, Windows operating system during the start up will search for DHCP server and IF it does not find any then it will assign a bogus IP address for any NIC starting with 196.254.xxx.xxx (that way Windows can load the TCPIP stack during the start up.

Please let us know.

I would assign these IP address to the PC and try the network (run the wizard too after changing the IP)

PC:
IP 192.168.1.1
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: leave it blank if you don't have a DHCP server (or router as gateway)

Laptop:

IP: 192.168.1.2
subnet: 255.255.255.0
gateway: same as above.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

[Scabby]

I have no recollection of changing any IP details, I think it was set to Auto

I have now changed the IP to what you have said, checked the Firewall settings, allowed in the trusted zone each other computers IP settings and pinged the computers from each LAPTOP to PC and PC to LAPTOP.

Both send and recieve packets ok.

but they still do not recognise each other via My network places?

Laptop computer name = LT1
PC computer name = PC
workgroup on both computers = MSHOME

If on the Laptop i go to My Network Places>View Workgroup computers, I can see LT1 and no PC

If on the PC I do the same I cannot see anything! empty window..

I have tried \\LT1\[name of one of my shared folders]\ from PC and I get 'network cannot be reached. For more info . . . . '

I have tried \\192.164.1.2\[folder name]\ from PC and the same, 'network cannot be reached. For more info . . . . '

oh this is fun, you would think I'm a total nerd on computers and yet I have been using them for 29 years to date and this is totally fun. For something thats 'simplified using Windows XP' man I must have been retarded overnight

[Scabby]

anyone? .

[snowmonkey]

Check out your PM.