Networking: A dark ritual or just something invented by MS

Z

ziomatrixacs

Registered
For those who dont want to read the story, Could I hook my ibook g4 up to the PC via ethernet cable and create a network so I could send data over the ethernet into my ibook?


A few weeks back, my desk top hard drive died.. tried to convince mom to get a shiny new iMac, but she elected to get a replacement 160gb EIDE hard drive from her "sources." (Its mac compatible!) Now she is asking a bit too much, she wants me to recover her lost data from the old 40gb hard drive. Even the guy who installed the new hard drive said it was hopeless, he tried everything but suggested I freeze it. I heard from a few places freezing could work..its in the freezer now. :)

Well, we dont have an external hard drive with back ups, so there is no way for me to get the data off the old hard drive into a very safe place. I do have a bunch of flash drives though.

We installed XP home SP1, and told mom to wait for me to download SP3 and some virus protection. Since she has dial up, it would have taken years to download sp3. I used my ibook and the internet from a near by college to download a good 550mb of programs in about 30-40 minutes if I recall correctly. Put them on a flash stick, took about 2 minutes.. then I put it in the PC.. took about 10 minutes to get the data off!

So, my pc has lightning fast USB 1.5 (I think) For those who dont know, its about as fast as an unfired bullet!
The frozen hard drive is expected to only last for 20 minutes IF it does work..
That means I cant get all of the important data out in time.

I got to thinking, I should use every resource I have.
Which brings me to my initial question..
Could I hook my ibook g4 up to the PC via ethernet cable and create a network so I could send data over the ethernet into my ibook?

I considered hooking the old hard drive up as a slave, but it has XP on it already and probably 6 years worth of virus's (mom was a purist, and got annoyed by the constant "This could be a possible virus" pop ups) I have virus protection on the computer now, but I have no idea on its quality. But considering it said Windows media player could possibly be a virus, Id have to say its good, darn good!

Keep in mind, this computer has more power than a garden tiller. So I need to get the data off FAST as possible.. I dont think ill have enough time to create a network, but it sure would be nice.

Any help is much appreciated!
 
You might need a crossover ethernet cable for a direct computer-to-computer connection. It wouldn't hurt, anyway. I think Macs are smart enough to work either way, but I'm not that'll work with a PC in the mix.

You can network a Mac to a PC, but you need to be sure they're using the same services. SMB is probably the easiest way to go. Mac OS X can access SMB shares (standard windows shares) right out of the box, so if you want to mount a folder from your PC on your Mac, it shouldn't be a problem. You can also enable SMB sharing on your Mac so the PC can access the Mac's share. To do this, go to System Preferences > Sharing > File Sharing (make sure it's checked) > Options > Share files and folders using SMB (again, check it).

I'm a little confused by your story. What's the Mac, and what's the PC? Why do you need to transfer data from one to the other instead of dumping the data from your old HD to your new one in the same machine? If the machine only has one drive bay, you might want to consider getting a cheap external enclosure ($20-$30, probably). Then you could just plug it into the Mac (or PC) and copy files over.
 
The PC is the old desk top with XP on it. It had a 40gb HD that went south and mom is dead set on restoring the data. It now has a 160gb HD. My Mac is the Ibook, I wanted to connect it to the PC and send data from the PC to the iBook.

The comptuer has 2 bays, but I am afraid to connect them for fear of the old HD having countless virus's transfer to the new HD..

I just tried making the network. I can get data from my Ibook to show up on the PC, but I cant get data from the PC to go to the Ibook. I think thats a windows thing, so I should probably look for windows network or something?
 
Sometimes PCs don't appear in OS X in the Finder's Network section, but you should be able to access it by going to the Go menu > Connect to Server and entering smb://<IP address of PC>. To find the IP address of the PC, go to Start > Run > type "cmd" and hit enter, then type "ipconfig" (or perhaps "ipconfig /all").
 
I found my PC's IP address but Im not sure what you mean by " Go menu > Connect to Server and entering smb://<IP address of PC>."
I searched both computers up and down and cant find the Go menu. Do you mean open a web browser and use that?

Im using OS 10.4 and XP home edition SP3 by the way
 
In the Finder, there's a Go menu. It has things like Computer, Network, Home, Applications, and also "Connect to Server".
 
Mikuro is referring to the menubar at the top in OS X. That menubar is part of the Finder, which is what gives you your desktop and file manager (just like Windows Explorer in Windows, not to be confused with Internet Explorer). That menubar on top is called the universal menubar because it changes depending on the active application (could be the Finder or some other app, and is noted on the menu to the right of the Apple icon which sits to the far left).

When the Finder is active, you'll notice in the menubar that it will say "Finder" next to the Apple and one of the menu options is "Go". That's what Mikuro was referring to.
 
ok, i hit the connect to server and it took about 3 minutes then said "the file can not be read error -36" or something similar to that (im sure about the -36 part though)

I typed smb://IPADDRESS/mac
smb://IPADDRESS
smb://IPADDRESS/PCname

They all did the same exact thing..
 
ziomatrixacs said:
ok, i hit the connect to server and it took about 3 minutes then said "the file can not be read error -36" or something similar to that (im sure about the -36 part though)

I typed smb://IPADDRESS/mac
smb://IPADDRESS
smb://IPADDRESS/PCname

They all did the same exact thing..
Click to expand...

All you need to do is type...
Code: 
smb://x.x.x.x

Where "x.x.x.x" is the IP address of the Windows PC you're trying to access the share from. Once it accesses the PC, it will ask you for a username and password that is resident on the PC in order to access the share (listed in the drop down menu on the window that pops up).
 
I did exactly as you explained it. Go > connect to server and I typed in the IP address obtained by typing cmd and ipconfig in start > search.

I get a spinning wheel for 2-3 minutes then it says (this is exactly what it says, except the ip address which I have replaced with X's)
The Finder cannot complete the operation because some data in "smb://xxx.xxx.x.x" could not be read or written. (Error code -36).

Yahoo wont install either, it says it cannot connect to the server. (The got some new whacky way of downloading things I guess)
Couldnt get Frost wire or File phile to run because they need Java, but when I use the option of "install now" it says cannot connect to host. When I did it manually, it got to 100% then said, cannot complete, program cannot be written or something like that.

Perhaps I some how inadvertantly made the C drive unwriteble while making a network? Or it could be my anti virus or something..

Either way, I am now a 100% loyal customer to apple! I have never had this issue in any way before.
 
There will be more in Console when you get that error, if the above won't solve it.
It will detail the connection steps, and tell where it fails, giving another error.

nsmb.conf workaround may work if you are lucky.

But there are a number of other possibilities too. E.g. share name or path can't contain a hyphen (they have only had time to work a fix for this since 10.1...)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106471
&#8220;6. You cannot connect to a share with a name that contains a hyphen. Resolve the issue by giving the share a name that does not contain a hyphen.&#8221;

Terminal may work even when else fails,
smbclient //dns-name-or-ip/sharename -W workgroup -U username

And there may be still a number of other annoyances binding to this. Such as my dealing with EMC-SNAS to connect to, long story and unresolved except as using Terminal. Well, at least someone else got the same error 382312500 in Console with another storage than I have with my struggle with every single Mac at work connecting to the smb.

Have a look at Console when you try to connect, and post the lines here...
 
I find it easier to connect from the PC to the mac personally.

I plug both into my router (its easier than diggin gout my crossover cable) hen on the Mac I go into the System preferences, sharing bit and enable Windows sharing. I then get the IP of the mac from the Network area of System Preferences.

Next, on the PC, open a new Windows explorer window. CLick the bar at the top so you can enter an address and enter \\IP.of.the.Mac and it SHOULD load. Then I just use the public folder on the Mac to swap stuff, I prefer not to give the PC access to the whole Mac HD.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top