4

I'm having trouble doing so. I basically want to transfer files between two PCs and also share the internet connection from one. As you may know Windows XP supports FireWire Network Adapters. What I've done so far:

I've tried setting up "office or home network" without any significant result.

I've tried assigning IPs to the 1394 adapters on both PCs (different of-course) but for some reason I can only ping from PC2 to PC1 (and not the other way around).

I've also tried enabling internet sharing on the 1394 on PC1 (where I have internet connection).

Also for some reason running "ipconfig /all" doesn't show my 1394 connection ips (on both PCs). The same goes if I try looking at the 1394 Connection Status->Support tab. That is strange.

And if I try to repair the connection on PC1 it tells me that "TCP/IP is not enabled for this connection" but I've surely seen it enabled in properties. On the other hand on PC2 when I try the same - the error message is different: "failed to query tcp/ip settings of the connection".

And the strange thing I also mentioned in the comments is that removing/inserting the FireWire cable doesn't affect anything on the OS (no message that there was something connected, no nothing). But the 1394 connection status is always connected.

However as I mentioned earlier I was sure at a moment that PC1 was pingable from PC2 (no longer I think).

Any ideas?

PC1 as connected to internet was updated to its latest version shortly after installation. PC2 on the other hand have never been connected to the internet and so it have never been updated after its initial installation. Though both PCs have the same SP2 (which is the last one for the x64 version of XP).

I tried installing some of the "offline updates" from msdn to PC2 but without much success. However I think they are all secure and not functional patches.

My 1394 adapter seems to be recognized and working fine by what Windows shows. Its exact name is "VIA OHCI Compilant IEEE 1394 Host Controller". I bought the exact same controllers for both of my PCs. Though now I can't exactly tell their model but I will if it could be important.

EDIT: OK - I think I partially fixed the problem. Maybe it was the driver, maybe my 1394 controller - i don't know but I connected to PC2 using the card internal port (inside the box) and now both PCs are recognizable one another and so pingable. However right now I'm struggling to share my internet connection from PC1 to PC2.

WindowsXpUser
  • 209

2 Answers2

1

The best way is to create an IP connection over Firewire. If you do this it would be like connecting a cross-over UTP cable fromone computer to another and then you can use FTP server and clinet to transfer files or other applications that run over normal TCP/IP networks.

Also Firewire is much faster than FastEthernet.

Here is a tutorial about how to create the IP connection over Firewire.

http://lifehacker.com/173973/geek-to-live--fast-one-wire-network-ip-over-firewire

After you do this set the IP and subnet masks of both computers accordingly (Subnet mask should be the same and IPs from the same subnet e.g 169.254.1.1 and 168.254.1.2 with the s.m set to 255.255.0.0)

The install Filezilla FTP server and Filezilla ftp client and from the client connect to the IP of the server and you can start transferring files.

You can try other FTP client/server.

If you encounter problems please ask.

yoyo_fun
  • 1,883
1

The problem was partially hardware and partially software misunderstanding. It seemed that my firewire adapter 4-conductor port that I was using had it's pins misplaced. I had to manually fix this using small screwdriver. But even then I got a lot of problem with it so I started using the 6-conductor one and now I got zero problems on the hardware side. The conclusion is to avoid using 4-conductor connectors if possible. Bear in mind that if the 2 PCs are connected properly - device connected sound will be played when cable is plugged and of-course disconnect one when unplugged.

Then on the software side. I got confused with the "Internet Gateway" connection quite some time thinking it was instead the ICS point (on PC1) but now I understand that this is actually something else non-related (which I still can't quite understand but anyway). Another thing I was missing is the fact that in order to enable ICS - you should have at least more then 1 internet adapters enabled. I also got problems with the internet connection from PC2, even though PC1 had proper ICS configuration. This was fixed with renewing the PC2 "1394 Net adapter" ips (by using 'repair' option on it). Another way to get over this would be restarting your machine I think. But before that I now remember I also got problems with creating the ICS on PC1. This was linked with my internet router using the IP 192.168.0.1 which was reserved for ICS to be set up and working. I fixed this by changing my router ip.

Also I think it's strongly recommended to let ip settings be automatically assigned to both PC1 and PC2 1394 adapters.

Right now everything is perfect and working as it would be expected. If PC1 is running, PC2 have internet without any additional settings to be changed at start-up. Another great thing is that both PC1 and PC2 files are directly (and automatically) accessible from any of the computers through the administrator shares of your drives. Because of that though I suggest disabling "File and Printer sharing" on your internet connection (for security measures).

WindowsXpUser
  • 209