Linking laptop and home computer

I'm trying to link my laptop to the home computer- both running XP home, using a crossover cable. Both have Ethernet 802.3 cards. Each time I run the network wizard and try to access the laptop I get a message "laptop is not accessible, you might not have permission...... The network path was not found. The icon for the laptop appears on the host but not vice versa.
I've tried many different combinations in the wizard, still no success and even manual by setting IP addresses to 10.0.01 on the host and 10.0.0.2 on the laptop. I just want to transfer files between the pc's without internet access through the network
Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Glyn

 

Things to check or to do:

- Forget the wizard. Don't use it.

- Set up the network card on each PC manually.
... Use addresses 192.168.0.5 and 192.168.0.10 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 To make this discussion easier, we'll call 192.168.0.5 PC1 and the other PC2.
... Set the speed on both network cards to 100Mbps full duplex rather than leaving them at Auto. Not sure about your cards but some have a place to set speed and another to set duplexing. Others have them set as a pair. Just make sure the values on both cards match.
... Give each PC a different name of 15 or less characters and no spaces or strange characters.
... Put both PCs in the same workgroup.
... Enable Client for Microsoft Networks and file & printer sharing on both PCs
... Share the folder(s) and printer(s) you want them to use.

- Plug in the crossover cable and make sure the PCs can "see" each other. As follows and do from PC1:
... start~run~cmd
... ping 192.168.0.10 and you should get a response.

- Then do the same from PC2 but you will ping 192.168.0.5

If the ping testing works, continue. If not, post back.

- Each PC will need to have the user logging on with a username and a non-blank password.
... if you use the exact same username/password you are good to go.
... if not, you must add both username/passwords to the users section on both PCs. And this particular thing is case sensitive so the match has to be exact.

 

Hi Newt, many thanks for the help. I tried manually configuring the network cards but the default gateway is blank and the DNS server addresses are blank also- do I need them?
Results of pinging were the same on both PC’s- pinging with 32 bits, sent 4, received 0, timed out, lost 4, 100% loss
Reading other postings I tried the ipconfig file with the following result.

First the host
Windows IP Configuration Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : emachines Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Linksys LNE100TX Fast Ethernet Adapter(LNE100TX v4) Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-04-5A-5D-0A-A1 Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.5 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
Then the Laptop
Windows IP Configuration Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : HENRY2 Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Mixed IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-08-0D-31-53-52 Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.10 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
I still get the original "not accessible etc" on the host but now on the laptop I get "Mshome not accessible" and "a list of servers for this workgroup is not available. "

Hope this means something to you and will help solve the problem. Note... using AVG antivirus and zoneAlarm
Regards, Glyn

 

using AVG antivirus and zoneAlarm

There is your problem. The firewall is doing it's job and blocking the TCP/IP traffic. You'll need to set each PCs firewall to allow packets from the other PC.

Gateway - that's the IP address of a router that lets you talk outside your own network. You don't need anything in there. Don't want anything, in fact.

DNS - that's the IP address of a server that matches IP addresses and names so you can get to www.windowsbbs.com without putting in the IP address but can use a nice friendly name. You don't need or want anything in there either.

But you probably do want things so you can talk from PC2 to PC1 by using that name rather than the address. So set up a "poor man's DNS" by using a thing called a hosts file. Make it using any text editor (notepad is fine) and name it hosts with no extension.

On an XP system (or any of the NT systems in fact) the file needs to go in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc (or wherever you have your OS loaded). The contents are simple with just the IP address followed by any names you intend to use when connecting to the other PC. For the example we are using here, your hosts file would look like:

# note - anything after the pound symbol is a comment and is ignored.
# you can use them if you want. No need for your file but I put
# them in to explain some things further.
#
192.168.0.5 PC1 Pc1 pc1 # I used all possible variations
192.168.0.10 PC2 Pc2 pc2 # of the name so you can type any of them
127.0.0.1 localhost Localhost # and still have it work

 

Ah, the sweet smell of success and many thanks Newt. I did everything in the above posting- Hosts was already in the directory so I edited in notepad and included the lines you suggested, then saved. Next I closed down Zonealarm (firewall) and AVG (antivirus) and tried the network- it worked!!
I then ran with AVG on each and still it worked but with Zonealarm I was barred again. Looking into Zonealarm I was able to include the IP address and subset to allow access.
My final query is am I allowing access to any hackers by the IP addresses in Zonealarm?
I'm just over the moon having cracked the problem and am celebrating with a bottle of wine-- as we say here "cheers Newt" what would we do without Windows BBS
Many Thanks, Glyn

 

Glyn - glad you got it working.

And no, you really aren't opening up any holes in your firewall that outsiders can exploit by simply allowing your two IP addresses to get thru.