Networking Win 98 to XP

I have attempted to network my two computers (one 98 and the other xp) into a home network. I have used the xp network wizard and cannot get the two computers to see eachother...

I am able to ping the 98 computer with the xp but not the other way around. I am using a linksys cable gateway.

any help would be great! thanks

Do you have any firewalls enabled? Make sure that the built-in Internet Connection Firewall is disabled on the XP computer.

I totally understand your frustration!

I am trying to connect my laptop to my PC.

All I have is a PCL10.100 Lan card and the single wire it comes with.

I have followed all the instructions but on both systems it says a network cable is unplugged.

Am I missing something ? Looking through the book it says you need to position the PC's by the switch - what switch? The guy in the shop told me all I needed was the Lan card and cable??

Do I need two Lan cards - I was under the impression my laptop had one built in - it's a Satellite Pro A10.

Please help before something gets broken

I'm confused about your situation. How are you connecting the two computers?

I have put the Lan card in my PC and connected the 'modem' wire to the back of the card. I connected the other end of the wire the Lan socket in my laptop.

As you can tell I'm a total novice but surely I should have some sort of port or hub??

You may know this first part already, but just in case: First you need to make sure you are trying to connect the 2 PCs using a network (NIC) port on the laptop, or if it is a modem port. You can tell by the sizes. If a standard phone cable snugly fits, then it's RJ-11 (a phone connector) which means that is a modem port. That's not going to work for what you are trying to do. If the port is larger (RJ-45), then the phone cable will be too small for the connector. What you need is to be sure that you are connecting two network cards in the 2 machines via an RJ-45 network (not phone/modem) cable.

The other trick is that since you are trying to connect 2 PCs without a hub/switch in the middle, the network cable you need to use is a special type called a "crossover" cable. My guess is that this may be your current issue.

Making the physical connection is the first part. Once that's done, to share files you'll need to be sure that the IP-Addressing is set correctly on both PCs, and it makes life a little easier to have them both in the same "workgroup" as well. Let us know if you need more details on this part.

Hope this helps!

No its definitely an RJ45 cable. In my instructions it states...

Now that you have installed your LAN cards (I did the PING test and they are)you will need to connect the two PC together using the switch (what switch??) Position your switch close to the PC's you wish to connect tgether and connect up to a mains supply.

Connect the peer to switch cable supplied from the RJ45 port fro your Lan card to ports 2-5 on the switch (I don't have a bloody switch)

Either I have a dodgy wire or the guy in the shop didn't know what he was talking about?

Your assistance is appreciated

I think the network side is OK it's just that my laptop doesn't seem to recognise the cable is plugged in.

If you're not connecting through a switch/hub, then you have to use a crossover cable to make that connection. The instructions you have are assuming that you do have a hub, so they do not mention the crossover cable. The cable that came with you network card is probably not going to be a crossover cable, so you can do 1 of 2 things:

- Find a corssover cable and connect the 2 PCs directly using that cable.

- Buy a cheap hub/switch and connect the 2 pcs to the hub, each PC using a "standard" (non-crossover) cable.

Don't know if this tells you anyhing but on the wire it says. Cable type CMR24AWG Cat 5

On the box it's advertised as 'Connect a desktop PC to the ethernet network'

is this where I'm going wrong? Whats the difference bewteen ethernet and LAN?

Unfortunately, not really, and a google search didn't help much either. I'd bet a paycheck that what you have is a standard cable though... Okay, not a paycheck, but you know what I'm saying

No looking around a type 5 cable is a crossover wire. I found another that I had kicking around and tried that too - it doesn't work either!

Do you think it could be faulty socket on my laptop I get the following message when I hover over the icon..

Local area connection, a network cable is unplugged - it isn't!!

I managed to get the two computers to see each other...
Now I can share from the xp computer but the 98 computer seems to have lost internet access. The IE screen comes up saying "the page cannot be displayed" and an error saying "unable to browse the network... the network is not accessible".

So what is needed now... I cant seem to figure it out??? oh yeah they both get a good ping

does your connection have a green led and is it on?