A week ago, I bought an HP Pavillion 752N Pentium 4 with Windows XP to replace my Dell Dimension XPS266 Pentium 2 running Windows 98. I moved my DirecPC Satellite Receiver PCI card (which allows me to access the Internet via a dial-up connection and download via the satellite) from my Dell to my HP and it has worked without a problem since then. It is merely considered another network adapter card.

In order to transfer files from my old Dell PC to my new HP PC, yesterday I installed a NIC card in my old Dell (Linksys Etherfast 10/100) and activated the Realtek RTL8139 Family PCI Fast Ethernet NIC in the HP. As I only have the two PCs, I have purchased an RJ-45 crossover cable, allowing me to hook them up directly without the use of a hub. The connection between the two computers does not appear to be working. Both NIC cards are set up to 100Mb Full Duplex. The IP addresses are 10.1.1.2 and 10.1.1.1 respectively with a subnet mask of 255.0.0.0. The link light on the HP is usually solid, the link light on the Dell is flickering -- both have the 100Mb light on. The interesting part is when I accidently gave the HP the same IP address as the Dell, the HP said there was a conflict, as did the Dell. They are both set up as part of the MSHOME workgroup and both are set to share their files.

I have tried to ping the HP from the Dell DOS prompt, and vise versa, but the request timed out. I can ping the local loop and the local IP addresses sucessfully.

I have looked at the status of the connection using the Windows XP View the Status of the Connection and there is some send and receive activity -- and when I tried the ping, the numbers do increment for both send and receive.

The IP address for the satellite NIC card is assigned by Bell ExpressVu (DirecPC) and is 209.226.174.193 subnet mask 255.255.255.0. And I have put my service providers (Bell Sympatico) DNS entries, along with the entry supplied by DirecPC. The gateway is also supplied by DirecPC. The hostname is hostname@directpc.

On the HP, I have shut off firewalling, allowing all ports access (Permit all under the TCP/IP Filtering in the Advanced Tab window in the Advanced TCP/IP settings for the NIC card in the HP), but it did not make a difference.

I have also tried disabling the Satellite receiver card to see if that made a difference. But, it didnt.

I have also made sure I have shared my files in both my computers.

When I click Entire Network on the Network Neighborhood window in Windows 98 on the Dell, I get the following message: Unable to Browse the network. The network is not accessible.

I have actually seen the HP listed once under MSHOME workgroups on the Dell, but cannot seem to get it back. On the HP under My Network Places I can see the Dell, but when I click on it, it says it is not accessible, that I might not have permission, and then network path not found.

I did use the Network Wizard to setup both the HP and the Dell (created the diskette), but I did not bridge the connections to allow the Dell Internet access. I stated there was no Internet connection during the setup, as the first time I did this, and allowed it to happen, it reconfigured the TCP/IP settings on the Satellite card and I had to re-install it to get it working again.

I only need to set this up to transfer files (the old Dell does not have a USB port and no CD write capabilities). After I transfer my files (about 150MB worth) I no longer need the connection. I could disable my Satellite card temporarily, but would prefer to figure this out now, in case I need to use the Ethernet connection in the future. HELP!

make an account on the XP machine i.e. user "fred" password "bloggs"

when you get the windows networking login on the win98 machine- login using this account.

You should now be able to see the other machine.

Didn't work. This is going to make me crazy!

You said that one of the nic's had a constant LED.

Try setting the data flow type to hardware default instead of the 100 meg full duplex.

Is it definately a cross over and do you have another one to test. What about a mini hub and 2 bits of straight through CAT5.

You could also consider a serial connection between the pc's using Laplink or PC Anywhere.

Have you set a gateway. If you have take it off.Double check sub nets and ip's.

I will try setting the cards to their default setting, although I think they are both autosense, which always scares me.

The cable is a Belkin M-M RJ-45 Cat5e crossover patch cable -- states right on the package for PC to PC network connections. I bought it because I didn't want to spend the money on a hub and two straight through cables just to do a simple file transfer.

I have tried the serial connection between the two and had no luck. I have an old copy of Laplink for 95 and of course, it didn't work. However, I used the Laplink null modem (serial) cable to connect the two computers and tried using the Files and Settings Wizard to transfer, but all it did was tie up my PC for hours and no files were ever transferred. I suppose I could purchase a newer copy of Laplink, but it seems silly I can't get this thing going.

I have no gateway set for that NIC card, although there is a gateway set for the Satellite NIC card. I have double-checked the IP addresses and subnet masks on both.

This is a real mystery to me. I will let you know what happens when I reset the network speeds to default.

I would setup lmhost file and have them point to each other? or I would also try loading netbeui on each machine to see if that might work.

If you install ipx/ spx on both machines you will be able to transfer files with laplink.

More and more this is looking like a protocol problem. Are the same protocols loaded on each machine?

Does your Satellite NIC have a local LAN address on it, then you enable DNS for external traffic, when you need it?

Sometimes just ok ing the network settings can reset the settings on the PC.

Don't worry we will get these machines to talk.

Okay, I set them both back to autosense and rebooted both. Still not working.

I have already tried installing Netbeui on the Win98 Dell, but don't know how to do it in XP on the HP.

I noticed when I was in Win98 there is a way to LM announce under the File and Printer sharing for MS Networks. It is currently set to No, should it be set to yes. Is there a similar requirement on Win XP.

As a result of installing the network software from the Wizard, I know have both Client for MS Networks and Microsoft Family Logon in my Network Configuration window. Should they both be there. It appears that the new MS Family Logon is working, as my login prompt on my Dell has changed, although my name and password still works (incidently, I set up that name and password on my new HP as a full user).

The mystery continues....

Yeah i had the same problem, only i was using a hub. Seriously the exact same problem. i wasnted to enable filesharing between a 98 box and an xp box. tried frekin everything....till i gave up, and installed xp on the 98 box. and as u would expect....xp did all the work for me from there. since you are finished using your dell, i dont think you would mind/care about just installing xp onto it, just for the purpose of getting this to work, and if you do so im sure ur problems will be solved....i understand i did not give an answer, but if it worx, it worx.

Here is what I would do next, from one of your computers goto the DOS prompt and do a trace from pc to pc and see how it's routing.

C:>tracert ip address of the other computer[enter]

It's might be routing out to the Internet.

There is another way to easily transfer data.

Set one hard drive as a slave to the other- copy over the data then put it back its box.

Still doesn't solve the networking problem - but it will copy the data.

Despite the fact that I cannot ping either machine directly connected, and figuring a tracert wouldn't work -- I did it anyway, and as suspected, it keeps timing out.

I think the advice about installing XP on the Dell is best. So here is my question. Can I just do an upgrade from the CD I got with my HP, or do I need to go out and buy another copy of XP?

The other thing is, will it install okay on my Dell Pentium II 266 with 288Mbps memory. I am pretty sure I have the disk space.

Thanks for everyone's help and patient. It does get very frustrating after awhile.

Trish :-)

Here one other thing you can do, download this free program called netmon 1.6. It shows what local tcp/udp that are open and listening. One other thing you can do, if you want to is, download a sniffer and see what kind of traffic is being generated on your network.

there is a Free program call show traffic 1.2

http://demosten.com/showtraf/

or you can download ethereal which is also free

http://www.ethereal.com/distribution/win32/

Trish here's Netuie for XP. It's for a Compact. Don't run it as an exe just unzip it to a folder and read the install.txt and readme flies.

I Have a question trish? Did you set up the 2 computers with the same workgroup..(example:trish)

vox_jox, ccna

Yes, the computers have the same workgroup MSHome

I will download the utilities and give it a try.

I have currently uninstalled my DirecPC card and I am trying to see if I can get the network working without it -- reran the wizard and still nothing. I am trying to get HP to help, but they are not anxious to get involved with all this third party stuff. I figure if they can at least ensure I have setup everything right on the factory installed NIC card, and all my configuration on the HP is correct, at least I have a starting point.

Try laplink cable using parallel ports..

Wish i were there .. so i could help you..

vox_jox, ccna

Okay, I downloaded Showtraffic -- nice little utility.

These two machines are talking. Showtraffic displays incoming traffic on the HP (10.1.1.2) from 10.1.1.1, which is the Dell, when I ping from the Dell. However, the pings time out. Go figure. I am going to try Showtraffic on the Dell, and see what happens there.

At least I am pretty sure now it is not the link or physical layers (NIC cards or cables) that have the problem. This is definitely a layer three problem (I hope).

I will keep trying various things to see if I can get it working.

As a last resort, I will either just move the hard drive into the HP or purchase an updated copy of Laplink with a parellel cable.

What happen to the good old days when it was all about IRQ conflicts -- it was so easy then!

It's sounds like you have a Corrupted IP stack on one of the computers.

Remove the power cable from the Dell and reboot. Sometimes the NIC can be "locked" and needs a complete power off to reset it.

After all that, I ran self-diagnostics on the new Linksys FastEther card in the Dell, and it was toast. I replaced it with a new one, and I can now ping the two cards (yeah). Still can't see the either computer under neighbourhood network on the Dell (98) or workgroup connections on the HP (XP), but at least I know now it is just a settings issue with sharing and users.

Hopefully, if I poke around long enough, I will figure out how to get them to recognize each other.

first of all when networking you must not have both computers with same ip address.windows xp has a wizard that will set up your xp machine and if you put the xp cd in the 98 machine choose perform options task,choose from there setup home our small office.the cd will load a wizard that will look kind of like the xp wizard choose your correct settings and all will be complete.windows 98 will need user name but i have done without.if there is any problems with networking like that than email me and i will show you another way to try but thsi should work,,,,

I'm having a LAN party and i'm hooking up a few comps to the network. I have xp. I am able to newtwork one comp to the network, he also has xp. But this comp with 98, we aren't able to see on the network, and he can't see our games.