unable to find MAC using arp

i was unable to find out my MAC address using arp request.there are no other problems except for a ping problem of the same sort( i could'nt ping). i tried disabling all the firewalls but in vain. i could fing MAC addresses of the servers but unable to find mine, when i try using my IP, this message comes- no arp entries found

why dont you just type in ipconfig /all ? your box does not need to arp for itself.

its not that, i know my MAC address .
I wanted to send an ARP request so as to find my MAC address. Isnt that what LAN operators do in order to confirm the physical address with IP. i just wanted to check out if that would work.

OK im curious what are you doing to generate and ARP request? you have me wondering here what you are actualy doing and the steps involved are you generating a directed ARP request using ARPing or something?

For now lets say I wanted to verify what MAC address is associated with an IP address, first I would ping that IP address from a machine on the same IP network, which when your PC goes to send IP traffic to another PC it will look at its own address if the other machine is on the same network it will send an ARP request broadcast (if its not already in the ARP table) this is because network cards do not understand IP and transfer data by MAC on the same segment. now every computer on the segment will get the ARP request which states your machine wants to know what MAC is associated with IP address x.x.x.x all the machines that do not have that MAC address will discard the ARP request (or update their own table) except the one that has that address which will reply saying Im IP address x.x.x.x and my MAC is bl.ah.bl.ah now your PC will update its ARP table and send the IP information to the machine that responded. At this point you just look at your ARP table and see the MAC to IP address.

You see Sgt. a simple response just generated an entire book LOL. (inside joke)

ok, i've done that and am able to look at the MAC addresses of the gateway. But when trying to find my own MAC address , i get this message-No ARP entries found.

what does that mean, am i not connected to the network or what? or should i have some access rights in order to see the MAC addresses of other machines on the network.

So what you are saying here is that you whent to your gateway machine (whatever that is ) and pinged the IP address of your workstation and got a response back yet when you look at the arp table on the gateway machine you dont see your machine listed?

yes

only the gateways and the servers connected are shown in the table .

Dont know what to tell you on that. What is your gateway device and what is your PC?

can i see all the systems connected to my LAN using an arp request

is there any possible way that i can find out the systems connected to my LAN at that particular time

you didnt answer my question. but you would find it much easier to use an SNMP or ping sweep utility to discover a network.

thank u