chipsterva69
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workgroup/mapped drive not accessible
I have spent the last three days trying to trouble shoot a mapped drive/workgroup problem involving three systems on a home network. Everything operated fine until approximately four days ago, when I started to run into access problems with the mapped drive on one of the systems.
So, without further ado - here are the specs...
Three computers - A, B, and C - all three are WinXP systems, up to date on updates. Everything sits on a Verizon FiOS modem/firewall/router. System C has a second hard drive (160GB) that is serving as a file depository for the home network. All three computers are connected via a home workgroup (coincidentally - HOMEWORKGROUP). System A is a laptop accessing via wireless, system B is a desktop. All three systems use ZoneAlarm free and Norton AntiVirus2007. Systems A and B access the second hard drive on C as a mapped drive.
Problem - starting 3 days ago, systems A and B lost the mapping to the drive. Investigated network places and found that accessing system C was no longer possible through workgroup computers list - received the dreaded 'workgroup is not accessible. you may not have permission...' Matter of fact, A and B didn't see any computers in the workgroup. C, however, could still see and access A and B.
So, I tried renaming the workgroup - all three systems can see each other, and C can access A and B, but A and B cannot access C. In the process of restarting the systems though, I noticed that immediately after rebooting, C was open and accessible. Hey, problem solved! Until about 10 minutes after booting - then the mapped drive is dropped again.
I looked through the events viewer to try to determine what program may be affecting the mapped drive/access, but nothing jumps out at me. The problem currently remains the same - immediately after rebooting, all systems can communicate normally, until approximately 10 minutes after booting. Then C drops the mapped connections and cannot be accessed from A or B. C itself remains in contact with A and B though and can access both systems.
I have researched this and found all sorts of information about: NIC cards that shut down; improperly set DHCP settings, ZoneAlarm and Norton interference, and even some tips about adjusting the registry settings. So far - no dice.
I am out of ideas. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
So, without further ado - here are the specs...
Three computers - A, B, and C - all three are WinXP systems, up to date on updates. Everything sits on a Verizon FiOS modem/firewall/router. System C has a second hard drive (160GB) that is serving as a file depository for the home network. All three computers are connected via a home workgroup (coincidentally - HOMEWORKGROUP). System A is a laptop accessing via wireless, system B is a desktop. All three systems use ZoneAlarm free and Norton AntiVirus2007. Systems A and B access the second hard drive on C as a mapped drive.
Problem - starting 3 days ago, systems A and B lost the mapping to the drive. Investigated network places and found that accessing system C was no longer possible through workgroup computers list - received the dreaded 'workgroup is not accessible. you may not have permission...' Matter of fact, A and B didn't see any computers in the workgroup. C, however, could still see and access A and B.
So, I tried renaming the workgroup - all three systems can see each other, and C can access A and B, but A and B cannot access C. In the process of restarting the systems though, I noticed that immediately after rebooting, C was open and accessible. Hey, problem solved! Until about 10 minutes after booting - then the mapped drive is dropped again.
I looked through the events viewer to try to determine what program may be affecting the mapped drive/access, but nothing jumps out at me. The problem currently remains the same - immediately after rebooting, all systems can communicate normally, until approximately 10 minutes after booting. Then C drops the mapped connections and cannot be accessed from A or B. C itself remains in contact with A and B though and can access both systems.
I have researched this and found all sorts of information about: NIC cards that shut down; improperly set DHCP settings, ZoneAlarm and Norton interference, and even some tips about adjusting the registry settings. So far - no dice.
I am out of ideas. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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ASKER
sorry - should have included ping results. all three machines can ping all three machines, both by ip and by machine name. let me try the mapping command line.
ASKER
ultimately I am still not sure what caused the initial failure, but using command line to create the mappings seem to work where everything else to date had failed. of course, i had to make sure that the machines were set with static IPs through the router, but that was easy enough to setup. thanks chiefIT - and my daughter thanks you!
scrathcyboy - i had already disabled the services for ZoneAlarm and Norton - no change. All machines were in the same workgroup and the user accounts being used have admin privileges. the command line mapping did the trick - I tried that prior to wiping out and rebuilding the network shares and installing the MS IPX protocol (though I had tried enabling NetBIOS on a lark).
Thanks for the help!
scrathcyboy - i had already disabled the services for ZoneAlarm and Norton - no change. All machines were in the same workgroup and the user accounts being used have admin privileges. the command line mapping did the trick - I tried that prior to wiping out and rebuilding the network shares and installing the MS IPX protocol (though I had tried enabling NetBIOS on a lark).
Thanks for the help!
there are no real DNS servers to translate the Names between the machines. I you want them to talk between them using the Netbios name you can edit the HOST file. The host file is in the I386 folder of XP. The HOST file is much like a DNS record stored on the local machine. Just add all of your computers to all of the HOST files and away you go.
Oh, use notepad to edit the HOST file.
ASKER
thanks for the info on the HOSTS file - i am used to checking it when I run into issues with IE rerouting and connection issues. i didn't realize that is serves as the Netbios DNS list. makes sense once you hear it though. thanks again!
Make sure everyone is on the same workgroup, and all logins have ADMIN priveleges. Then DELETE ALL NETWORK shares, shut down ALL computers at the SAME TIME. Wait 5 mins, reboot them all, and now recreate the network shares from scratch. If this does not work, install the MS IPX protocol, that is local file sharing, on all computers, reboot, and try again.