Network Disappered from My Network Places

[Guest]

I have 2 desktop PCs connected via RJ45 to a USRobotics Wireless Turbo Access
Point & Router. I also have a laptop that connects via the wireless link.
Until today I have happily run a small home network allowing access to all
files and folders between computers. However, this morning I tried to access
a folder across the network from one PC to another and it was unavailable? On
looking in My Network Places on the main PC there is nothing listed. The
second PC and laptop are still happily communicating but the main PC is
nowhere to be found. The strange thing is that all computer are still
connected to the internet via the router and all can be pinged by the others
from the DOS prompt. I've tried running the home and small office network
setup several times and have changed both the network name and the computer
names but the main PC can neither reach the others nor can it be seen. Apart
from the abscence of the network drives in MY Network Places and the
inablility to access them all seems normal. This problem is driving me nuts.

 

[Guest]

Okay... I finally got to the bottom of this and managed to restore my network
after hours of internet research, hours of hacking and a bit of trail and
error and luck.

I think the problem started with a virus/trojan infection; something to do
with boat.exe or boat32. At some point my autoupdate was disabled and my home
network was somehow disabled on my main PC. I could ping the respective
computers but was unable to access files or folders or even see them in My
Network Places. Although I managed to purge the virus/trojan it had most
certainly left its mark.

After restoring the services that allow auto-update to function correctly I
started playing around with ipconfig at the DOS prompt. I then found
references to NetBT and the nbtstat DOS command. XP was complaining that it
couldn't load the NetBT driver. I found a number of reasons for this and did
a bit of registry hacking in an unsuccessful attempt to rectify it. In the
end I exported/imported the relevant registry entries (NetBT) of a near
identical installation from a second PC. That got nbtstat responding but XP
now complained that it wasn't bound to any adapter. The final step was to
uninstall my network card and reboot. After the card was reinstalled and
network wizard run my network magically returned.

Hopefully this info and procedure will help someone else in the future.

 

[Robert L [MVP - Networking]]

Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on http://www.ChicagoTech.net
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on http://www.HowToNetworking.com
Okay... I finally got to the bottom of this and managed to restore my network
after hours of internet research, hours of hacking and a bit of trail and
error and luck.

I think the problem started with a virus/trojan infection; something to do
with boat.exe or boat32. At some point my autoupdate was disabled and my home
network was somehow disabled on my main PC. I could ping the respective
computers but was unable to access files or folders or even see them in My
Network Places. Although I managed to purge the virus/trojan it had most
certainly left its mark.

After restoring the services that allow auto-update to function correctly I
started playing around with ipconfig at the DOS prompt. I then found
references to NetBT and the nbtstat DOS command. XP was complaining that it
couldn't load the NetBT driver. I found a number of reasons for this and did
a bit of registry hacking in an unsuccessful attempt to rectify it. In the
end I exported/imported the relevant registry entries (NetBT) of a near
identical installation from a second PC. That got nbtstat responding but XP
now complained that it wasn't bound to any adapter. The final step was to
uninstall my network card and reboot. After the card was reinstalled and
network wizard run my network magically returned.

Hopefully this info and procedure will help someone else in the future.