Laptop network problem

I'm splitting out my laptop problems from the "Sharing Printers" thread, because I now understand these to be two separate issues. To recap - the laptop is W2K wireless connected to Linksys router. Nothing shows in "My Netwrok Places;" the error is "Workgroup is not acessible. The list of servers is not currently available." This computer is visible from the other three and can ping them, although they can not ping it.

Here is a possible clue. I discovered that both laptops had the same network name (not sure where in the install process this name gets assigned), and this was the second one brought up on the net. I have now renamed it. I also note that the network connection was labeled "Local Area Connection 2;" I have removed the 2, with no effect. But imaybe I caused the problem with the duplicate name. Just don't know how to recover.

 

A duplicate PC name would certainly cause problems. The rename should have fixed it though unless you are running WINS or DNS within your network or unless you somehow populated local hosts or LMHosts files with that information.

Absent any of that, try powering down all the pieces the starting them back up and beginning with the router. And that is shutting them down and pulling the power cords out for at least 30 seconds rather than rebooting.

 

Sometimes you ***** things up so badly that the only way out is to start over. I reinstalled OS, all apps and data (only about six hours) and everything is clean. I also notice I don't have all those protocols that somehow got installed the first time.

Now I recall the way this happened. I had gotten a larger drive for the older laptop, then saw a newer machine cheap on eBay with no drive, seller unsure whether it was operable. But from the screenshot, I could see it was ready to boot. So I bought it, moved in the larger drive, acquired a network card and brought it up. Naturally the two machines had the same name. Not a problem until I tried to network internally, then...