Installing Hard disk ruined my network

[Amigosdefox]

I have two computers which share an internet connection, the server computer has two network cards, one connected to the modem and the other to the second computer. Someone gave me a used hard disk so I installed it the second ide connector as master and moved the cdrw drive to the primary ide connector as a slave. Ever since my the connection between the two computers stopped working. But I dont think is an irq problem because when I uninstalled the drivers for the network card and restarted, windows detected the card and I was able to install the original drivers from a diskette. However, when I use winipcfg there are no properties shown for my network card. In network settings both the card and the tcp/ip protocols for it are intalled and I have given it a fix ip adress like before but still nothing works. Any suggestions?

 

[PanicX]

System Specs?

Since you used winipcfg, I'm assuming you have Win9x on these machines.

First things first, if you remove the new hard drive, does everything go back to normal?

If you check the back of your NIC, do you have any lit LED's?
If not, it's possible your crossover cable has gone bad (coincidence in timing).

Does the other NIC card show any lit LED's?

 

[Phantasm66]

I'm with panic on this one I think its just a fantastic coincidence that your peer to peer network stopped working when you fitted the drive.

have you tried some simple diagnostics?

ping loopback 127.0.0.1 on both machines.
ipconfig in command prompt - are you getting a class C network (i.e. with a subnet mask 255.255.255.0 on each machine? Is the gateway on the machine with one network card the ip address of the internal lan network card on machine with 2 cards...???)
try stopping the internet sharing on server machine and add it again.
have you tested / replaced the cable? is the cable plugged in securely? are both network cards fixed in securely?
can you ping each machines' own IP address(es) and then its partner?

 

[sicarius]

Hmmmmm

Are you saying you can get on the net with one and not the other. I presume this is it since you had to get on to write this but you never know? Network card to the modem? Cable I presume? If you are off the net on both reboot the modem. If just the one networked to the server is off make sure you didnt get the cables mixed up? The one to the modem may or may not be a crossover cable while the one between the two computers has to be. Like the advice above make sure you are getting a link light on both cards. No reason why slaving a drive should cause this.


S>

 

[Amigosdefox]

Two computers, computer #1 with two nics, one connected to the dsl modem, the other nic connected to computer #2. Ive checked the nic cards of both computers and they have a green led turned on constantly, not blinckin, which means that there is comunication between the two computers. However ive tried to ping the computers to each other but i get no response. I can ping each computer to itself however.
I tried ping loopback 127.0.0.1 but I get an incorrect parameter message. Am i suppoused to type "ping loopback 127.0.0.1" in an ms-dos window?
The nic card for the home network of computer #1 has a fixed ip adress of 192.168.1.1 and a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 and computer #2 (client computer) has a fixed ip adress of 192.168.1.2 and a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. The gateway of
computer #2 is the ip adress of the host computer (192.168.1.1)
as well as the dns request. I used sygate office network to share the internet connection but ever since it stop working I uninstalled it, even so, not even my internal network is funcitoning. I tried using windows me network wizard but that only caused my computer to crash on startup until I uninstalled the drivers fot the nic card connected to computer # 2.

 

[Phantasm66]

Originally posted by Amigosdefox
I tried ping loopback 127.0.0.1 but I get an incorrect parameter message. Am i suppoused to type "ping loopback 127.0.0.1" in an ms-dos window?

Nope. "Ping 127.0.0.1" (without quotes...)

sounds like your 2nd machine is still getting an IP address dynamically allocated from the first machine... or rather its left over from a lease that's not expired yet which is strange because I thought the leases were always short.

However ive tried to ping the computers to each other but i get no response. I can ping each computer to itself however.

If you can't do that, then you either have a firewalling software in place on one machine which is interfering, or quite simply a signal is not getting from one machine to the other. Could be software related (driver corruption, etc) but its more likely to be a bad/misseated NIC card or faulty cable.

 

[sicarius]

sounds like your 2nd machine is still getting an IP address dynamically allocated from the first machine... or rather its left over from a lease that's not expired yet which is strange because I thought the leases were always short.

It should be. I dont mess with internet sharing like this so I may be wrong. Your using you first machine as the gateway and more or less router if I have it right. Depending on the nics two solid greens probably means you have a link. Another light blinking will mean traffic. Does ME have have the ability to do DHCP phantasm? Are you saying the router (1st machine) should be allocating a ip to the second machine? He is hard coding his ip's just like you were using tables back in the old days it looks like to me. Like I said I am unfamilier with this in the way it is being done. I would guess it is a software issue with the sharing on the first machine normally but since you have no internal network that makes me think it is something else. I would start at the begining again. Reload the TCP/IP stacks on both machines and network them back just like you have them.


I had another thought while I was in the shower! Great place to think when your busy it seems. When you get ready to try and get these machines hooked back together just undo the cable modem. Lets forget it for awhile. Everything looks allright to me as far as how that is all set if I understand what you are doing. Just get the two machines to talk again. I would delete all the networking out of both machines including the net cards. Then reinstall it just like you were going peer to peer except dont do anything like load netbui. Just the MS client, file sharing service, TCP/IP etc. I would put the IP's to 1.1.1.1 and 1.1.1.2 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 and see if they will see each other. If we can get them to do that then we will get them sharing the net.



S>

 

[Amigosdefox]

The ip in the second computer is set to 192.168.1.2 because I fixed it like that manually, I never used dchp even though sygate office network had it as default. It still seems very strange to me that everything got messed up imediately after installing the hard disk. Also when trying to reinstall sygate the computer crashed, then I tried installing windows me internet connection sharing software and again the thing crashed and it would only boot up in safe mode, until I uninstalled the drivers for the nic comnected to the second computer. I think Il do what sicarius says and reinstall everything from scratch, physically removing the nics and re installing them.