Not Able to READ or Write to External Hard Drive Thru Networ

[ngoldwein]

I have a desktop computer connected to a laptop computer thru a wireless network (both using XP Pro). The desktop has an external hard drive connected by USB. From the laptop I can see and change files on the desktop internal hard drive, but I have a problem with the external hard drive. Under the "My Network Places" I can see the external hard drive but when I click on the drive I get an error message "\\Desktop|external is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions. Not enough server storage is available to process this command."

I have tried 2 different external hard drives and I have tried swapping and putting the external drives on the laptop but everything has resulted in the same problem. The strange part is that last week I was able to see and change the files on the external hard drive from the network. I started to have the problem once I was running my backup program on my laptop and mistakenly rebooted my desktop machine. Once the desktop completed the reboot, I was then not able to see the files on the external hard drive. I have double checked and I have the correct boxes checked for sharing and allowing network users to change files.

When I log in on the desktop machine under safe mode with networking, I cannot see any desktop drives from the laptop. I have "everyone" have full permission for everything . I even went in and added a user (normal account that I log into) and gave full permissions for everything. I then rebooted the desktop and tried seeing the drives on the laptop. I am able to see/change the internal drives (2) and can see/change the thumb drive, but the external drive I still get the same message drive not accessible and not enough server space.

What else is there I should be trying? Is there something I should check on my laptop?


I would appreciate your help.

--

Neil

[chicagotech]

Do a simple test. Can you copy a file to the external hard drive.

[ngoldwein]

I can write to the drive from the desktop because (connected by USB) but I can not write to or even read a file from the laptop.

I have the network setup correctly because I can read and write from the laptop to the desktop on either of the 2 hard drives installed on the desktop.

[ngoldwein]

To point out another fact - the external drive shows up under "My Network Places" but I can not do anything from there. I know that it is showing because if I change the name of the external drive the new name shows on the laptop. Again, anytime that I try to access that drive from My Network Places I get the error message about maybe not having access permission and there is not enough serverspace.

All help is appreciated.

[chicagotech]

You may need to take ove the ownership. This lnk may help,

Can't editdate even administrator
The administrator may lost the ownership of the folder. To do take over the ownership, right click on the file or folder. ...
http://www.chicagotech.net/Security/ownership2.htm

[ngoldwein]

Well it is possible that you have found my problem but I can not be sure because another problem developed.

When I go to the properties of the external drive I do not have a security tab (unless I log in under safe mode), is this the way it is suppose to be?.

When I logged in under safe mode, the ownership of the external drive was showing a folder in the recycle bin and I changed it to administrator. I then rebooted both machines and for some reason the IP addresses on both changed (from 192.168.0.4 & 192.168.0.3 to 192.168.0.3 & 192.168.0.2, each machine went down by 1 digit in the last group). Now my problem is that I no longer seem to have a network. If I goto a command prompt and type "Net view", on both machines it only shows the laptop. Also if I ping from 192.168.0.2 to 192.168.0.3 everything is fine. If I ping from 192.168.0.3 to 192.168.0.2 the request times out. From 192.168.0.3 I can ping my wireless router 192.168.0.1 and I can also ping the outside world.

I would appreciate all assistance since I need to have my network functioning.

[ngoldwein]

I just noticed a strange thing about my logon. When I logon to my laptop and the goto the windows task manager everything looks normal and it shows my logon. When I goto the Windows task manager for my desktop (the one that I can not ping) there is no use shown as active, yet it appears that I have the usual functionality including internet access.

Please help.

[ngoldwein]

I figured out the problem about not being able to ping the desktop machine and I also fixed the logon problem. For some unknown reason there were some processes which were set to disabled (even though I did not change them) so I reset them and all of those problems are fixed.

I still have the same problem with the external drive not being accessable from the networked laptop. I was thinking that maybe the easiest way to fix this would be to delete the external hard drive from wherever I need to do that and then start over by putting it back into my system. Please tell me if you agree with this and if so, how do I eliminate it from all desktop systems. If you have any other thoughts, I would appreciate them.

[chicagotech]

From the local computer that connecting the external hard drive, what do you see under Security tab? Any users?

[ngoldwein]

If I am looking with my normal boot (not safe mode) there is no security tab.

When I boot in safe mode I have a security tab and under Group or user namesthere is:
Administrator[DESKTOP\Administrators] - allow everything (special is partial)
CREATOR OWNER - Special is checked
Everyone - Modify, Read & Execute, List Folder Contents, Read, Write
System - allow everything (special is partial)
Users[DESKTOP\Users] - Read & Execute, List Folder Contents, Read, Special Permissions

Since my last post I uninstalled the drive the added it back in and I also reformated the external drive.

I would appreciate any assitance. I may be totally wrong (since you know more about this than I) but I suspect the problem is more about the second half of the message about "Not enough server storage is available to process this command" rather than permission since I have exhauted the permssions.

Please suggest something and I will try it.

[chicagotech]

Then try this one.

Not Enough ...
"Not enough server storage is available to process this command." 1 "Not enough storage available to process this command" 2 "Not enough storage to Complete ...
www.chicagotech.net/notenough.htm

[ngoldwein]

First of all I do not have any Norton products installed on my machine. Here are the results of checking the registry:
1) IRPstackSize was there and there is a decimal value of 15 - article does not say what value is correct
2)NullSessionPipes- I have the following values there - COMNAP, COMNODE, SQL\QUERY, SPOOLSS, LLSRPC, browser - the articles says remove any unneccessary entries but I do not know what is necessary
3)PagedPoolSize was already set to 0
4) do not have Norton Anti-virus installed

Please advise actions on items 1 & 2 above.

[chicagotech]

The post is just one case. That doesn't mean Norton is only software make the problem. Try to increase the IRPstackSize to 16.

[ngoldwein]

I changed the value of IRPstackSize to 16 in all 3 places it shows in the registry. I still have the same problem.

Would appreciate any more suggestions

[ngoldwein]

I wanted to see if anyone has more thoughts on this issue and reitterate that I was able to read\write to this drive from the networked machine until I accidently did a reboot of the desktop machine while I was writing to the drive from the laptop.

Please, looking for more suggestions.