Can't connect to NAS

[archiewood]

Only been running 7100 for a few days, so I apologise in advance if I've missed something stupid (I've been through a couple of dozen related threads though).

My NAS and PC are on a wired network in the same workgroup, and I can ping the NAS from the PC and access its config page on a browser. If I try to access it from explorer or map it as a network drive I get "cannot access <name>...0x80004005 Unspecified Error." (I've looked up the error code but can't see any relevant results)

The result is the same whether I use the netbios name or the IP of the NAS. My network is set to home, I have media sharing turned on, I don't have the live ID assistant installed, and the result is the same with windows firewall on or off. Can anyone help please?

 

[DocBrown]

Only been running 7100 for a few days, so I apologise in advance if I've missed something stupid.

My NAS and PC are on a wired network in the same workgroup, and I can ping the NAS from the PC and access its config page on a browser. If I try to access it from explorer or map it as a network drive I get "cannot access <name>...0x80004005 Unspecified Error." (I've looked up the error code but can't see any relevant results)

The result is the same whether I use the netbios name or the IP of the NAS. My network is set to home, I have media sharing turned on, I don't have the live ID assistant installed, and the result is the same with windows firewall on or off. Can anyone help please?

When you say "My network is set to home" do you mean a homegroup network in win7 7100 ? Not a business work network? Is network discovery set to ON ?
Do you have any other computers on the network, if so what OS's

" Doc "

 

[archiewood]

When you say "My network is set to home" do you mean a homegroup network in win7 7100 ? Not a business work network? Is network discovery set to ON ?
Do you have any other computers on the network, if so what OS's

" Doc "

I mean the network is set as a home rather than public/business network. I removed the homegroup.

There is an XP machine on the network, but I can't see that either. FWIW, my PC and the NAS are wired, using a wireless router as a switch, but the XP machine is wireless.

I thought network discovery was on but no; I've turned it on and the NAS now appears, but I still can't access it. Now the error is 'the network path was not found'.

 

[DocBrown]

That's a start. I have not connected to a NAS, yet. So I will learn something here. I'm glad you removed the homegroup as it only plays well with other win7 boxes.

Do you have some folders set on the XP machine as shared ?

Here is a snip of my wired net options on my win7 box.

 

[archiewood]

That's a start. I have not connected to a NAS, yet. So I will learn something here. I'm glad you removed the homegroup as it only plays well with other win7 boxes.

Do you have some folders set on the XP machine as shared ?

Here is a snip of my wired net options on my win7 box.

OK, I mirrored your options on my machine, and it still doesn't work. However, there's an odd part: every time I open the adv. sharing settings, 'turn off network discovery' is ALWAYS selected. I turn it on, save it, close the window, open sharing settings again, and 'turn off network discovery' is selected. Is there some policy that would affect this?

To answer the other question, yes there's a shared folder on the XP machine, and the XP machine is visible to my PC but is inaccessible in the same way as the NAS is. The XP machine can access the NAS.

 

[DocBrown]

Just realized the snip did not get the bottom 2 items in advanced sharing

Not sure if those 2 will make that big of a difference ?

 

[DocBrown]

Save changes at bottom

 

[archiewood]

They're both the same as mine, anyway. Just to be sure I restarted, and the network discovery setting is still resetting itself.

 

[DocBrown]

It's getting late night here. I need to go to bed. I will check this thread in the morning to see if anybody else joined in to give their opinion.
Please try to add your specs & any helpful aditional info.

" Doc "

 

[archiewood]

I added my specs, but I can't think of anything else that might be relevant.

 

[archiewood]

I've got a little more info now. I've been corresponding with Freecom support for a few days but they don't support win7 officially yet, so we're not really getting anywhere.

Interesting thing though - I am able to access the root of the drive and map network drives to it if I use wireless (I'm on a laptop), but not if I use cable. I've tried rebooting with wireless turned off and a cable connected but I can't do anything with the drive (except see it under 'network' in wexplorer), or with the network drives I mapped to it when I was using wireless (it gives a permissions error).

Freecom also suggested I try mapping drives to it using different credentials, trying my windows login details and those for the drive's web interface (can't think why that would work), but that didn't work either.

This is really annoying - 54Mbps access is just not fast enough, and I don't understand why the NIC I use makes any difference.

 

[H2SO4]

Most NASes are stripped-out *NIX boxes running some variant of samba, and samba is an imperfect beast. However, the fact that you seem to get better results through wireless is intriguing.

The way to troubleshoot these sorts of network interoperability problems is with a packet sniffer. If you haven't used one before, think of it as a tape recorder for the network. You press "record", reproduce the failure, press "stop", and then analyse the recording at your leisure to understand what's going on. If you can generate such a capture ("recording") and upload it here, I or someone else might be able to help.

Suggested procedure:
1) Download and install Wireshark (www.wireshark.com) on the affected machine.
2) Start a capture on the wireless interface (3rd or 4th button from the left on the toolbar from memory).
3) Initiate a (successful?) connection attempt.
4) Stop, save, zip, and upload the successful capture file, which we're going to compare to...

5) Deactivate the wifi interface if you have to. (in order to force usage of the wired one)
6) Start another wireshark capture, this time on the wired network interface.
7) Repro the failure to connect.
8) Stop, save, zip, and upload the "failed" capture file.


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EDIT: I just read the thread in more detail and noticed that you reported the same issue when trying to connect to shares on the XP machine. In that case, it'll be even better if you go through the procedure above while connecting from Win7 to XP - leaves out the additional samba variables.