XP over the network

I am working on a network and there are about 8 computers hooked up to a LAN. The client PC’s are all running Windows XP Pro and the Server is 2000 Advanced Server. Now, my buddy asked me to take a look at this network so I didn’t really no what to expect, but when I got to the building I was in complete shock. I mean this company isn’t a small fish however it has gaping wide security holes that even the most basic hacker could get through. However, I have had the strangest problem one of the computers cannot hook up to the server. I mean it is really odd because it ran for a few years then all of a sudden bam it can’t hook up to the network drive. I have checked all the setting and the computer is a replica of all the other ones. Infact, it can see the other computers and access their shared files, but it cannot access the server. I checked all the permissions and they are set correctly but for some reason it cannot see it. I made sure that the XP firewall has been disabled but still nothing. Please provide some assistance.

- MilitantEidolon

Check the server and make sure the machine and user have an account.

Then release the IP address and renew .

Can you ping the server???

By IP?
By Name?


MLF

Anything in the eventlogs?

I can IP ping the server from the client computer and from the server to the client computer (didn't try with name).

There is nothing in the eventlogs and the computer is identical (besides IP address) to the other computers on the network.

The user and password are set up in the server and the permissions are correct.

- MilitantEidolon

Have you tried logging on w/a different user account?

if these machines are "identical" you may want to doublecheck to make sure that they dont have the same name then... also, is this "server" a domain server or just a file server?? try pinging it by name (if possible) and then also trying a nslookup of that computer.

No, they do not have the same computer name and their IP address' are different. However, all the settings and the sorta of stuff is that same.

So, you think trying to Ping the name instead of the IP is any better?

- MilitantEidolon

Can you see server name on network neibourhood?
Server and clients are on the same network segment?
Are they using "old" domain structure or Active Directory?
"server" service is active on server side?

Once had a 2K machine unable to connect to the exchange server...
Could see the network etc...but was unable to connect.

I ended up reinstalling TCP\IP and service packs and the machine could then connect again.
Not sure what happened ...but it looked liked the TCP\IP stack got corrupted somehow and some service just stopped working.

Reinstalling the protocol worked....

What about another user on the same machine ...does it still happen???

There are no other users setup on the machine. They do not have active directory setup on their servers so I would have to add another user and I do not see a purpose in that. I haven't uninstalled the TCP-IP connections but I will try that it. I have switch IP's around (they have a pool of IP and I just selected another IP from the pool to see if it was the IP addy.

- MilitantEidolon