I'm having trouble re-establishing a Firewire network that I used to have between a laptop and a PC.

The PC is connected to broadband though Ethernet.

I initially connected the two together with a Firewire (IEE1394 cable), and after running the Home networking Wizard they were networked. I shared, files, printers, and the Internet connection with no hassles.

All was fine until my wife took the laptop to Uni, and they changed the internet connection settings so that it could connect there through the Ethernet port.

They changed the IP address, the proxy settings, and maybe the DNS, but that was all.

I can't for the life of me get the PC and the laptop to talk over Firewire now.

Both PC's register that there is a cable connected, but I can't ping either machine.

I have not changed anything on the PC, and days of fiddling with the laptop network settings has yielded no joy.

My goal is to allow the laptop to connect to the Uni internet, and later connect to the home network for file and print sharing.

I don't think this is a hardware or driver error, as exactly the same thing happened with her previous laptop.

The laptop is running XP home, the PC XP Pro.

Re: Windows XP Firewire networking

It sounds as though the IP address on the laptop has been changed to something incompatible with your PC. Go to "Start", "Run" and type "command" (no quotes) on each machine, and then type "ipconfig". This will give you the IP settings. Since you want the laptop to work on the Uni LAN, you could change the IP settings on your PC to match. Go to "Start", right-click on "Network Places", right-click on the firewire connection and select "Properties", then TCP/IP. This should let you set an IP address and network mask that is compatible with the laptop - say add one digit to the IP address you see in the laptop.

If the laptop is set to get an IP address automatically (quite likely), you could set your PC as a DHCP server. Probably better is to set up "alternate configuration" in your laptop to match your PC. Have a look at "DHCP" under Help Topics and read about IP configuration.

If you can't sort it out, post again with the IP configuration information of each computer and we'll see what can be done.

Barry

Re: Windows XP Firewire networking

Thanks Barry,

It turns out that my cable was busted. I have it working now. Interestingly the IT folks at Uni set up the laptop to connect to their network, and ever since, I have been unable execute any IPCONFIG commands successfully.