XP or Netgear problem

[stockton31]

Here's my story:

I have 2 computers (named computer1 and computer2 both running XP Pro.), connected to a Netgear RT314 gateway. Before running XP, I was running Win2000 and everything worked fine as far as networking them together. I used to be able to mount each others E and F drives onto the other computer i.e. I’d see E and F drives from computer1 on computer2 and computer2’s E and F drives on computer1 with the proper permissions for the workgroup.
Now with XP, the furthest I can go is to be able to ping both computers one at a time(not always, don’t ask me how), but the other computer is unreachable. The error message I’m getting while trying to access on the “my network” ---> “view workgroup computers”, is:

Home (which is the name oh my workgroup) is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator for this server to find out if you have access permissions. The list of servers for this workgroup is not currently available.

Well I already have set all permissions for all users on both computers. I just don’t know what else to do. May this be a router problem or is there something I’m missing in XP?
Btw both computers access the internet fine and independently of the other computer, therefore I don't believe it's a router problem.
Any help from gurus like you will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you. George Stockton.

 

[JJB6486]

is that when you try to open the workgroup (listing all network machines), or the specific computer's icon?

JJB6486

 

[stockton31]

Both attempts.

 

[clutch]

Are the firewalls enabled on either of the systems? If so, drop it and wait for them to sync the decided browse master (maybe up to 50 min, but prolly about 15 min) and try it again.

 

[stockton31]

Thank you for your help. This did work and now I’m able mount the drives; however am I not more vulnerable now since I disabled the firewall? Even though I’m behind my Netgear router. I don’t know how good of an idea this is….
And one more thing; why don’t I get the logging window when a user doesn’t have full permission to access a drive? It denies the connection, but at least I should get the logging window to log in as an administrator other than that unprivileged user.
Thank you.

 

[clutch]

Sitting behind a simple NAT/PAT device (like your Netgear router) is called "security by obscurity". While it does inspect incoming packets for origin and destination information, it isn't by ANY means a "firewall" (I don't give a damn what the packing states), but it *does* give a small network a fair amount of protecting against unsolicited incoming traffic. If you don't have, say, port 80 forwarded to any specific system, then the "Code Red" attacks would have no affect on internal systems since the unit would drop those packets. And that spiffy "UPnP" exploit? Well, if you can't connect to the system via a needed port (since it isn't forwarded), then a direct attempt wouldn't do much good, right? Also, simple resource discovery and exploit attempts on Windows systems tend to be curbed since no NetBIOS traffic is allowed to come in unless asked for.

So, is it a firewall? No. Will it protect you? More than likely, yes. I used my Linksys unit for over a year without any issues. This included hosting a couple of FTP sites, 3 websites, my Exchange 2000 server, 3 terminal servers (yep, you can modify the ports if you like) and my SQL 2000 server for remote admin from work.

 

[clutch]

Oh, and as for the other issue, are you connecting to an NTFS partition? If so, normally domain authentication is simply passed through by the workstation and there isn't much you can do about it. I *thought* there was a "Connect As..." function, but I can't remember as I haven't had a need for it.

 

[stockton31]

Thank you clutch for your time and expertise.

 

[clutch]

NP, at least my response was somewhat useful. Kinda surprising with all the painting going on around me at work, I feel so liiiiggghh............

 

[greensteed]

I have a netgear MR314 (thats an RT314 with a wireless ap inside).

Try this test:
https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

I can't say if its a good test but I passed with flying colours and no firewall.