Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

  • Congratulations gkittelson on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Cable connection between 2 XPH computers

Status
Not open for further replies.

juliaatpcgp

Technical User
Aug 21, 2006
92
GB
I have successfully connected 2 PCs using the connection and the host can see the client is connected and the client has an icon in the toolbar showing the connection is active.

However, I cannot see the files on the host PCs.

I looked up on the Microsoft web site and realised that I had to set up sharing on the folders I wanted to see - I did that with 3 directories (My Documents, My Pictures, My Music and Desktop) but cannot see any of them on the client PC. If I type \\hostname\directory on the client PC's Run line, it fails and in the case of a directory with a space in, only shows the My part of the directory name. It's not showing in Network Neighbourhood.

Can you help me to get it working?

I cannot connect via any other method and if I can't get this working I will need to take the drive out into an enclosure, but that involves going to the shop and spending money - and I think why do that if I just need a short term connection and can do it for free !

The host PC doesn't have an ethernet slot so network cable connection isn't an option (even I felt it was worth setting up just to backup some important files from a PC that won't support a plug in USB drive due to a fault and doesn't have a CD-burner).

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,
Jay
 
If you really do have a connection try connecting with the administrative share. \\computername\c$ it should then ask you for the administrative user name and password for that machine.

 
I have always known that you can connect PCs using parallel cable or serial cable and in fact I'm sure I've used it myself before but it would have been a very, very, very long time ago, probably under Windows 98 or Me.

It's easy to set up under Windows XP through Network Connections and in fact the Help file tells you exactly how to set it up.

BUT the help file says nothing at all on how to use it and the Microsoft web site isn't helping me either because I've followed all the steps and it still isn't working.

I feel I am so close to getting it working and am just missing "something" that allows the PCs to see each other.

I will check out your suggestion of the "administrative share" though I don't really understand what that is.

Regards,
Jay
 
If you need to use a COM port for a direct connection, ask your system administrator to configure one of the COM ports on your computer with a null modem by using Phone and Modem Options in Control Panel."

To make a direct network connection


 
I'm not sure how to understand your reply.

I am trying to connect via Parallel cable and am looking for some reason why - despite a successful connection in technical terms - I cannot see the files on the host PC.

As I mentioned, this is a one-off situation and I can't see why I should need to go and locate and purchase a serial cable when I have a Parallel cable connection nearly working right now.

It seems like there's one missing step that I need to take to see the files and I'm looking for someone who can tell me what it is !

Regards,
Jay
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top