Home Network problem

[Stone]

G'day all, out of desparation I have searched the web to find a suitable site that might help me out.
I have 3 pc's networked at my home, however, my son and his friend have come home for the summer holidays and have brought their pc's with them.
All machines are running XP Professional.
All have onboard LAN
The 2 newly added pc's can access shared folders on the network, but the other 3 original pc's( including host pc ) cannot access the 2 newly added pc's.
The 2 newly added pc's can ping the original 3 pc's, however, the original 3 pc's on network cannot ping the 2 newbies.
All 5 pc's on the network can access the internet.
I am using a 5 port hub.
I am no guru and would appreciate some advice. I have wasted many many hours trying to sort this out. Even paid a so called expert to fix it but no progress.
Hope to hear from some one.
Thanks

 

[floppybootstomp]

First, go through the 'Set Up home network' routine on the 'main' machine and create the setup floppy disk when prompted.

Then run this floppy disk network setup on each machine.

Secondly, and this one is probably obvious, make sure all those folders you want to share are enabled for sharing.

And if you have a Network bridge sharing with LAN & Firewire on any of the machines, during the Network setup choose the manual option and choose just the LAN.

 

[Stone]

Thanks for your reply floppybootstomp. I have run the network set up wizard on all machines....many times. Get the same problem. My wifes and my own machine can talk to eachother. The 2 new ones can access shared folders on my wifes and my own pc's but it willl not work the other way...we cannot access their machines. The 2 new machines cannot access eachother either, but they can access my wife's and mine. All machines have shared folders.

 

[Stone]

Problem solved. After 3 weeks of frustration the answer was so simple. I was unaware that PC-Cillin ( being run on the two problem machines ) had a firewall. Once I discovered this fact and disabled the firewall on PC-Cillin on both machines they were accessible by the other pc's on the network.