Shared Drives Accessible after a long time

[kedarc68]

Hi.

I have a network of XP based desktops, all hard wired. There are machines like A, B, C, D, E and F and print servers P1 and P2. All have password protected shared drives.

Now I have a problem sharing A with B. With all others the sharing works well. If I want to access drives of A from B, it takes more than an hour. However, TCPIP services on A are accessible, The computer A itself is visible in My Network Places, I can ping it but it takes a long time to access shared drives. The error I get is "there are no logon servers available ...". After an hour or two, I can access the drives. There is no problem while accessing other computers' shared drives from either A or B.

However, if I change IP address of A, while accessing it, it asks for the credentials. You give them and save them, you can access the drives immediately. But next boot onwards, the same old problem comes back.

What could be wrong?

Kedar.

[jingda]

Not very sure about this but have you try checking whether the DNS settings on both the same on Machine A and B and have you done a port scan?

[rubberman]

Besides the DNS settings, also check the IP address of the problem machine. It may be conflicting with another system on the network. Assuming you allow laptops or other devices to connect, this is not an uncommon problem if these "guests" are using a static address by mistake.

[kedarc68]

Hi Jingda and Rubberman.

Thanks.

Both A and B, rather all machines have a common DNS. That is the Data Server located downstairs. Since it is a rather protected environment, there is no wireless connectivity. All machines are hard-wired. No "guests" are allowed at all. Matter of fact, they connected to internet only for updating the OS and Antivirus. So no internet is allowed for anyone. Further more, it is a sensitive area and all USB and other modes of Data Theft are blocked. All machines are manually assigned IPs and names. So there is no conflict on that part.

Kedar.

[rubberman]

It is still possible that two machines on the network have been given the same IP address by mistake. You should check that out. Again, a problem I have seen in the past, even on so-called "secure" networks. People do make mistakes like that at times...

[kedarc68]

Hi Rubberman.

Thanks.

Sir, this environment is so secure that whatever IPs that are allotted are noted down so as not to duplicate them. Anyway, we have just a handful of machines at this site and outward access (as well as inward access) is pretty much restricted. In the past six months, there hasn't been a single addition to this network and this problem popped up about 10 days back. Earlier, there wasn't any problem and even today, say after an hour or so, these two machines can access each other's shared drives. We are making do with the present situation, but still this is not correct and that's the problem.

Kedar.

[rubberman]

Well, without full information, we have to ask these questions. I assume you are using a single sign-on for your network, such as Active Directory, correct?

[kedarc68]

Hi Rubberman. Thanks.

Yes, each user has a single user ID and is blocked from using other workstations. The user name and computer name is bound to the Active Directory.

Kedar.

[rubberman]

Well, since the problem appears to affect only one computer-to-computer connection, and it seems to think that there is a login server (AD) problem, check to see if there may be a connection issue to Active Directory from the A system that is taking so long to connect with. Perhaps some configuration change with AD was made when this problem started happening, such as a system name change that did not get propagated to AD or the system in question. At this point, guessing is as good as we can get, I think.

[kedarc68]

Hi Rubberman, Thanks.

Even I went nuts trying out the reason for this. System A has no issues with the AD data server. Neither does any of the systems. Further more if only you change the IP of system A, it is immediately accessible upon giving the credentials. Now, is there some issue where Windows XP has a problem reconnecting to this system A while remembering and applying the credentials? Or should I ask the user not to save the credentials and manually supply them whenever he wants to access system A? That'll be a headache.

Kedar.

[rubberman]

Well, I am officially out of ideas now... :-( I hope you sort this out. Please post your solution if you find one - it will help others with similar problems in the future. Thx.