Laptop Can No Longer Access Printer, Etc.

I have a Dell Dimension 8400 with a 1000GB external drive and an HP printer attached. Both the external drive and the printer are shared. I have been accessing the drive and printing via my laptop and my wireless Netgear router with no problems for months. My wife was on the desktop and I spent several hours cleaning over 180 pieces of spyware, Trojans, etc. from the desktop.

The problem now is that I can see the “My Book” drive attached to my desktop from my laptop but cannot access it getting the message that I might not have enough rights or the network path might have changed. My workgroup was the default of MSHOME and the laptop and desktop are both named, LAPTOP and DESKTOP respectively. I thought it might be an issue concerning the workgroup so I created another workgroup named FARRAR, added both to the workgroup, rebooted, and still have the same problem with not being able to print to my HP printer via the laptop or view the contents of the external drive via the laptop.

Both units are running XP Home SP2.

What might I do to resolve the problem?

Thanks,

Jeff Farrar

Is Windows firewall enabled on the laptop?

Here's a nice 8 part guide to setting up home networking with Windows XP Home, this is part 1, there are links at the bottom of the page for the other 7 parts.

No...Windows firewall is not enabled. Thanks for the KB article BUT I have already went through those 8 steps and have yet to solve the problem.

Any other suggestions?

Thank You,

Jeff Farrar

It's been 3 days now and I still can't resolve this issue. My desktop can see all 3 laptops, my DSL Modem, and my Netgear Router. None of these devices can access my desktop, shared external drive hooked to my desktop, or my shared HP printer. All are members of the workgroup MSHOME but clicking onto the workgroup from any of the laptops brings the error message, “MSHOME is not accessible. You might not have permissions to use the network resources. Network path not found.” All COULD up until this past weekend when my son's friend tried to create a dialup connection and attach his wireless modem. All devices CAN access the Internet.

Here is some IPCONFIG /ALL info I was able to gather:

192.168.1.1 is the DSL Modem
192.168.1.47 is the Netgear Router
192.168.20.1 is listed as the /default gateway, and both DNS and DHCP servers.
192.168.20.2 is my laptop
192.168.20.3 is my desktop with printer, modem, router, and external drive attached
192.168.20.5 is my son’s laptop
192.168.20.6 is my wife’s laptop.

Some of the Netgear Wireless Router settings are:

Lan/TCP/IP setting at 192.168.20.1
Subnet mask is 255.255.255.0
“Use Router as DHCP server” is checked; Ranges are 192.168.20.2 through 50

WAN setup page has 192.168.20.0 listed by Default DMZ Server BUT the box is unchecked.

Basic settings of router have “Get automatically from ISP” checked under both Internet IP address and DNS address.

The DSL modem properties are:

DHCP Server = OFF
Remote IP address is that of Netgear router, 192.168.1.47

Maybe this will be helpful and not too much information.

Thanks…I work on PCs all day as an assisitant to our Network Admin so it is VERY frustrating not to be able to fix something that must be very simple.

Thanks Again,

Jeff Farrar

I'm not sure I completely follow what you're doing here, why is the router and modem on a different IP scheme than the pc's? You say they all have internet access, so I'm assuming you're just using the router to create a sub network inside of the network the modem and router are on - is there a reason you're doing it this way?

Either way, perhaps it is a DNS issue. From any of the 3 laptops, can you ping the desktop (at a command prompt, type ping 192.168.20.3) ?

If so, try accessing your share by clicking on start, run and entering: \\192.168.20.3

Does that allow you to see the shares on the desktop?

No...I still cannot see the shares. Back in 6/6/2006 when everything was working fine, i printed every property sheet for both the modem and router. Those numbers from 2006 match up exactly with what is entered now which is why this is so confusing. Thans for your time.

Any ohter ideas?

Jeff

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Farrar

No...I still cannot see the shares. Back in 6/6/2006 when everything was working fine, i printed every property sheet for both the modem and router. Those numbers from 2006 match up exactly with what is entered now which is why this is so confusing. Thans for your time.

Any ohter ideas?

Jeff

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So can you ping the desktop from the other machines like I mentioned above?

No, I cannot:

C:\Documents and Settings\Jeff Farrar>ping \\192.168.20.3
Ping request could not find host \\192.168.20.3. Please check the name and try again.

C:\Documents and Settings\Jeff Farrar>

Thanks,

Jeff Farrar

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Farrar

No, I cannot:

C:\Documents and Settings\Jeff Farrar>ping \\192.168.20.3
Ping request could not find host \\192.168.20.3. Please check the name and try again.

C:\Documents and Settings\Jeff Farrar>

Thanks,

Jeff Farrar

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do it again without the \\

It shold read like this:

C:\Documents and Settings\Jeff Farrar>ping 192.168.20.3