Why won't the rest of my network show up?

Question

My network was working fine before, but then I had to reformat my hard drive. I reconfigured the settings just fine, and I can still connect to the internet via my wireless router (as you can see ;-)) but I can't use File and Printer Sharing anymore. I set the settings just as they were before, but that doesn't seem to help. When I click on View Workgroup Computers, it only shows this computer, not the one I want to connect to. I want to be able to print and share files though! Please help!

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System Information
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-- Computer info --
Make: eMachines
Type: notebook
Model: M5414

-- Network Info --
Router Model: Linksys WRT54GS
IP Address: 192.168.1.100
Host IP (the computer I want to connect to): 192.168.1.120

My workgroup name is MSHOME (same on both computers)
My laptop name is FlarnNB
The name of the computer I want to connect to is NORTON

Computer I want to connect to: Windows XP Professional Edition Service Pack 2
My laptop: Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2

Answer 1

1) Make sure you've disabled Windows firewall, other type of firewalls (Antivirus software, Zonealarm) or firewall from wireless router. You then ping each computer and make sure you can ping.

If ping is still not working, this article shows you how to configure wireless client:
http://www.home-network-help.com/wireless-adapter.html

2) Read these 2 file sharing articles and make sure you share the files correctly.

Simple file sharing (default in XP)
Check how to do it here: http://www.home-network-help.com/file-sharing.html

The other type of file sharing is sharing with user/group permissions.
Check how to do it here: http://www.home-network-help.com/share-file.html

Hope this helps.. :o)

picoHat

Answer 2

If you're running some kind of firewall (like Norton Internet security) try disabling it temporarily and check- it could be the default settings are blocking the workgroup scan.

Also, what happens if you browse the network from the other computer- does the laptop show up? Can you ping the 2nd computer from a command prompt? Also try renaming the workgroup on both computers to something different, like group2- see it things start working.

Answer 3

It's hard to tell what went wrong in the process. Your internet connection is probably governed by DHCP being pushed out by your router. So that explains why you have internet, but no network. I would suggest recreating your home network. You can either run the wizard from either machine, then join the second, or you can dis-join your failed computer, then rejoin it to the workgroup.
Either method should work fine.

Answer 4

try connecting directly by ip address


start > run > //192.168.1.120