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Trying to connect to pc using ethernet cable

Provided that both the Mac and the PC are on the same subnet, that would mean that you do not have network connectivity. It may be time to try that crossover cable, or better yet a hub or switch. Check your network preferences on the Mac and choose Network Status in the Show: box if the ethernet port is showing red, then you are not networked. If you are getting a green light then the Mac and PC are trying to make network and the Mac is successfully making its port a crossover port. My instinct is that you will see a red status. If this is the case there may be one other trick that you could try. It might be possible that the NICs are having problems negotiating there link speed and duplex. You may want to hard code these settings to eliminate auto negotiation as a problem. It may be a little slower, but I would try using 100/Half. On the Mac if you are running 10.3, you can go to the network preferences for your built-in ethernet and choose the ethernet tab - change Configure: from Automatically to Manually, change Speed: from autoselect to 100BaseTX, and set Duplex: to half-duplex if it did not default to that. You will need to hard code these on the PC as well using the configure adaptor. It will be under the advanced tab, depending on the vendor of the NIC, you may either see link speed and duplex as a single setting, and choose 100/Half or there will be a seperate setting for the link speed and the duplex setting, if that is the case set the link speed to 100 and duplex to half-duplex. After this if you do not see a green link light on the PC's NIC anb a green status on the Network Preference Status screen for your ethernet connection on the Mac, then you will need to either get a crossover cable, or a hub or switch. If you are not getting a network link on both machines, then they will not be able to communicate on the network. Once both machines can get a network connection, then you can try the other steps, I mentioned previously.

If you are getting a good connection. make sure both machines are on the same subnet, for example assign the Mac an IP address of 192.168.1.4 with a 24 bit mask (255.255.255.0 subnet mask) and assign the PC an IP address of 192.168.1.5 with the same subnet mask 255.255.255.0.

I hope this helps.
 
operastarlet,

I am sorry, I was wrong when I said it would be red. Red means that it is not configured, however the step I suggested configured the port manually. In this case yellow means that the port is configured, but there is no network connection. This means that there is no cross-over functionality occuring. I think you are going to have to try a cross-over cable, hub or switch. You should be able to find a cross-over cable for between $5-10 depending on length, or a cheap hub/switch for around $25-35.
 
In addition to smb, I have also transferred files from a PC to my Mac using ftp. You'll need to select "FTP Access" in your sharing settings on your Mac and get an ftp client program for your PC. The ftp client progam that I have used is HS FTPExplorer that can be downloaded at http://www.haysoft.com/hs/untsearch.php3?eng=1. Any number of free ftp client programs can be found on the web. FTP is not the fastest way to transfer files but it is an alternative to smb.
 
operastarlet,

I think there's a basic network issue here.

On the PC run the program "winipcfg" (Start button -> "run" -> type "winipcfg"). This will let you fidn out what IP number is assigned to the computer. There'll be a dropdown menu in the winipcfg window - if there's more than one item listed in the dropdown, select the one that is your network card.

Tell us what the IP is.

Then, on the Mac, go into "System preferences" and find out what the IP address is for the built-in ethernet.

Tell us what that IP is as well.
 
You could go to Microsoft's web site and download "Remote Desktop Connection" for your mac. So long as you've got your sharing set up in Windows, and an IP to lookup, you should be able to use RDC to get on to your PC. Its a Citrix knock-off in the sense that it opens a terminal window in OS X. You can then move stuff around in the Explorer, to the Macintosh and then open it from the Mac.

I used this setup on a wireless network. I have a G3 450 box, a Powerbook, and I had my Mom's PIII 450 on a USB wireless connection. If I had to do anything on her computer, I'd just RDC the box - the computer would lock out on the PC end and I would take it over from the Mac(s).

Maybe that's all you need to do, though the other suggestions are pretty good too, and require no MS Crapplications on your Mac... but I found the RDC cool and useful.
 
Westside guy said:
operastarlet,

I think there's a basic network issue here.

On the PC run the program "winipcfg" (Start button -> "run" -> type "winipcfg"). This will let you fidn out what IP number is assigned to the computer. There'll be a dropdown menu in the winipcfg window - if there's more than one item listed in the dropdown, select the one that is your network card.

Tell us what the IP is.

Then, on the Mac, go into "System preferences" and find out what the IP address is for the built-in ethernet.

Tell us what that IP is as well.
Click to expand...
ok, so the ip address on the mac is 169.254.122.228
on the pc i changed it so it is 169.254.122.229


I just bought a crossover cable so maybe that will work.
 
ok with using the crossover cable. I am trying to connect to the pc's IP address, and I get a message saying

"Could not Connect to the server because the name or password is not correct"

But I didn't put in a password yet?
 
SUCCESS!

I FINALLY got in!
Thank you guys SO much for you help! :)
I for some reason could not use the pc's IP or the computer name So i tried smb://workgroup;username@netbiosname/share and it worked!
 
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