i have XP pro on both desktop and laptop, they are connected ( CAT5 wire ) through a linksys router that is also connected to the cable modem.
i share some drives cuz my laptop only has 12 gigs and those are full, and desktop plenty of storage.
problem is, sometimes i can see the desktop drives from the laptop and sometimes i can’t. and there doesnt really seem to be any kind of pattern to this. it seems they just come up and disappear on a whim.
help ? lately they dont show up too often.
Things that go away by themselves, can come back by themselves, or vice versa for your issues.
I suspect a cable problem between the laptop and the router.
If it’s not a cable problem, then it is obviously some software problem, IP conflict, sharing violation, permission levels, blah blah blah.
Is the router serving up IP addresses over DHCP? Are you using static IP addresses? Are you logged in as administrator on both machines? Are you adding the desktop to the laptop fresh each time? Or are you using a mapped drive?
If you get your IP addresses via DHCP, then each machine has the possibility of having a different IP address everytime you re-boot. If you made the desktop a “my network places” drive when it had one IP address, you may not see it if it has another IP address on a reboot, but you should be able to add it again from its different IP address.