I have a 2 PC home network via a Linksys (wired) router, which used to work OK but has packed up since I had to reformat my PC yesterday! To stop confusion I'll call my computer PC1 and my husband's PC2. Both PC's can access the internet and PC1 can ping itself and the router but not PC2. However PC2 can ping itself, the router and PC1. I've used the Home Network Wizard on both PC's, which seemed to work fine. Zone Alarm has also been configured correctly on both PCs and there are no conflicts with Norton Antivirus. If I try to Repair The Connection on either PC I get the same message "Renewing IP address failed". File And Printer Sharing is enabled, as is Internet Protocol etc... I've looked through loads and loads of posts on these forums and have tried the ipconfig/release and renew procedure (although I'm not 100% sure I know what I'm doing there!) and I've run out of ideas for solving the problem. Can anyone help please?

Check to ensure the built in firewall on PC2 isn't enabled and configured to disallow LAN traffic. Just because you can't ping doesn't necessarily mean you can't connect to a share. You could try mapping a drive directly to a share (as compared to trying to browse to it).

The PCs have to be part of the same workgroup, too. As suggested above, make sure the XP Firewall is disabled and ZoneAlarm is configured to recognize IP addresses 192.168.0.1 through 192.168.255.255 as "local". Your network adapter should be in the "Internet" zone, however.

"Renewing IP address failed". You need to correc this before you go any farther. Ping the local address locally is a useless test, in fact is tests almost nothing. What this tells me is that you have an APIPA address in the PC2. Check that your router has leases for dhcp and that you are not blocking based on mac. Does the PC2 have an ip 169.254.0.1 through 169.254.255.254?

Thanks for the suggestions guys. However, the settings on PC2 are all correct and haven't been changed since the network was working correctly. It's PC1 that has been reformatted and although I have managed to repair the connection (renewing the IP address) we still can't "see" each other on the network. Windows Firewall is disabled on both machines and Zone Alarm and the router have been configured correctly. I know the solution is something simple and I'll kick myself when I discover it. It's just really frustrating!