Oh good people, would you help this poor soul who is hanging for WEEKS with this silly problem. I have at home 2 PCs. When they both startup as Windows XP they are connected fine in a WORKGROUP network (indicating that their respective NICs and Cables function well). However, when one of them starts up as DOS (using the BOOT diskette) trying to access the other as a mapped network Ghost - the network does NOT function. That is, the DOS machine seems to smoothly operate all its DOS components: SiS900 driver, TCPIP drivers, NET, etc. – all indicate successfully completed. Yet, PING gets no response from any other IP address except its own:
- Ping localhost (127.0.0.1) is OK.
- Ping the DOS BOOT PC (192.168.0.1) is OK (Does pinging its own address means that the NIC itself is involved in the operation, including accessing its cable??).
- Ping the XP PC (192.168.0.64) does NOT work. Neither works the ping from the XP to the DOS.

Let me add that I don't use a HUB but a crossed wires network cable (which, again, functions fine in both XPs configuration). Here are my configuration files:

Config.sys
------------
FILES=20
device=A:\NET\ifshlp.sys
LASTDRIVE=Z

Autoexec.bat
---------------
SET PATH=A:\NET
A:\NET\net initialize
A:\NET\netbind.com
A:\NET\umb.com
A:\NET\tcptsr.exe
A:\NET\tinyrfc.exe
A:\NET\nmtsr.exe
A:\NET\emsbfr.exe
A:\NET\net start

System.ini
----------------
[network]
sizworkbuf=1498
filesharing=no
printsharing=no
autologon=yes
computername=UDI-NEW
lanroot=A:\NET
username=UDI
workgroup=WORKGROUP
reconnect=yes
dospophotkey=N
lmlogon=0
logondomain=WORKGROUP
preferredredir=basic
autostart=basic
maxconnections=8

[network drivers]
netcard=sis900.dos
transport=tcpdrv.dos,nemm.dos
devdir=A:\NET
LoadRMDrivers=yes

[386enh]
TimerCriticalSection=5000
UniqueDosPSP=TRUE
PSPIncrement=2

[Password Lists]
*Shares=A:\NET\Shares.PWL

Protocol.ini
--------------
[network.setup]
version=0x3110
netcard=MS$SIS,1,MS$SIS,1
transport=tcpip,TCPIP
lana0=MS$SIS,1,tcpip

[TCPIP]
NBSessions=6
SubNetMask0=255 255 255 0
IPAddress0=192 168 0 1
DisableDHCP=1
DriverName=TCPIP$
BINDINGS=MS$SIS
LANABASE=0

[MS$SIS]
DriverName=SIS900$

[protman]
DriverName=PROTMAN$
PRIORITY=MS$NDISHLP

Any solution/suggestion/enlighten/response will be DEEPLY appreciated.

Udi

you're trying to connect DOS in fat32 to XP in ntfs? it'll cost you $99 to get ntfsdos pro, i think. that's what you need to acces NTFS.

Hello Jemuzu,

Thank you for showing interest in my problem.
Yes, the XP is indeed NTFS, but i think that:
1)The ping does not access the XP's disk, but only its card. Therefore the NTFS is supposed to be irrelevent.
2)As a file server, the XP supposed to let FAT clients to access its shares. This is because the clients use services at the XP that of course do know how to handle NTFS.

Success at last!

I installed a new adapter (Kingston) with a different driver just to face another failure. However, this time, the diagnostics program suggested checking for possible conflict at the BIOS level. Shooting at the dark, I cancelled the Plug-n-Play feature of the BIOS, and things started to play.

Thanks to all who tried to help.

Udi