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paulb69

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Problem viewing shared drives with ADSL dial-in to my office

I really have one major problem but (as expected) another maybe related, maybe not.  I recently installed an ADSL connection to my office replacing my old 56K modem.  Problem is I can no longer browse network drives ( or map them).  I Have WIN 98 SE version, and have added Microsoft's VPN networking protocols and this is the only thing that is different.  I can Ping our office server, and run Outlook mail ,and connect to our business system but having checked everything ( with the help of my IT department) I now keep getting an error message "Your network is not complete" when trying to go in and check network neighbourhood properties.  This seems to be caused by the fact that "Client for Microsoft Netowrks" is not shown as installed.  When I Add it, it appears but then as soon as I re-boot, it's gone again and back comes the same error message.
I do have Norton Firewall 2003 installed now but apart from this I can think of no reason for not being able to connect and share the drives.  Can anyone help this poor dinosaur??
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dancorcal

Couple of Questions.

1. Have you changed anything on the server networking properties?

2. Is this a domain or workgroup?

 If this is a NT/2000 Domain you will need to have the "Client for Microsoft Network" installed on the client machine. If you are getting flacky results while trying to install the "Client for Microsoft Network" I would uninstall all the networking components hardware included "the NIC Card Drivers" (make sure you still have the drivers to reload) Then reinstall only the services and protocols you need. For a NT/2000 network you will need the NIC, TCP/IP, and "Client for Microsoft Network".

If the "Client for Microsoft Network" still will not hold it would appear you have some OS corruption and you may need to reinstall. Unless this is happening on more than one machine. How many machines do you have trying to connect to this server? Do they all have the same problem?

Can you go to the run command line, (go to start then run) and type \\yourservername and then press enter, at this point you should see the shares and resources offered on the server. Is anything there?
If not what error do you get? This could be a name resolution problem.

Do you have a DSL router with the new DSL service or did you just hookup the new modem to the server?

If you have installed a router is it handing out DHCP addressing to your network?

Hope some of this will help.

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ASKER

dancorcal, I'll give my best answers.
1) The server is actually a unix (Red Hat) but runs under SAMBA.  Nothing has changed to my knowledge
2)There is a domain and my workgroup is the same as before

I realise I must have Client for Microsoft Networks running but it just will not hold properly.  I've tried ripping it all out (remove dial-up networking, all clients and all protocols) and re-installing but still no joy.  Other machines are connecting OK I'm told, (it's the "only you have problems" syndrome from my IT department), although they may be running XP.  What's an NIC card, sorry I'm being thick!

No I've tried this already and connect by (run)ning \\serv01\stats which is the directory I need.  I get a Network not found error message.

I have a USB ADSL modem (not a router) installed with the relevant drivers and the old modem is now removed from the system. Any other thoughts on the problem with either issues?
The NIC card is the Network Interface Card, the lan adapter.

Can it ping itself in a loopback?

What is the computers IP address? Is it what it is suppose to be? Do you use Static or Dynamic IP?

If all is correct with the IP of the machine, can you ping the assigned gateway IP?

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ASKER

Sorry, the only LAN cards are dial up adapter and the VPN adapter, No other network card.  I haven't tried to ping myself, (I thought that was illegal), but I can ping both my ISP's allocated address and also my office server address's. My IP address depends on which PPP adapter is being used ( winipcfg indicates on one the ISP's allocated IP address and on the VPN version my office server gateway and server address).  Does this help?
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dancorcal

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ASKER

Thanks for your efforts.  This has been suggested by my IT department ( migrate to XP).  I have been shown a 98 machine here in the office that connects via the VPN, but this does have an NIC installed, although it runs the VPN connection by using a "dial-up" connection.  I guess you're right that this would be the simple solution tho'.  Any thoughts on why I cannot get Client for Microsoft Networks to install properly and hold?
None off the top of my head. There could be file corruption in the networking components of your OS. Usually ripping out all the components and reinstalling them will fix it, but you may  have to rebuild your system to fix the issue.