drive sharing over lan - driving me nuts

[chrysalis]

currently I am using 3 routers.

one doesnt act as a gateway for the internet but is more acting as a dumb switch so I can have gigabit speeds on lan. It used to be used for my adsl gateway but on my new isp it is unstable for holding the adsl connection (incompatible with isp dslam).

192.168.1.254 - gigabit, wireless N
The adsl router is daisy chained behind this. Previously when I had the adsl router set with a 192.168.1.x NAT setup this did no harm to file sharing so this daisy chaining in itself shouldnt be having an affect.
The cable router is also daisy chained of this device.
All wireless connections will be of this device.
My 2 desktop machines are directly connected to this device via gigabit ethernet but do not use it as a gateway.
DHCP is disabled on it, so it will only act as a router if specifically told to.

192.168.1.252 - adsl router.
This is currently passing through non NAT traffic so also has a WAN ip assigned to its interface. It only is the router for my main desktop machine and my VM's that run on that machine.
DHCP disabled.

192.168.1.1 - cable router.
xbox360 directly connected to this via ethernet.
acts as gateway/router for my 2nd desktop machine, xbox360 and anything connected to my network using DHCP.
DHCP enabled.

The number of devices shouldnt and I think doesnt make a difference, I had all 3 routers on before I started using 2 subnets on this machine, the problem seems to be stemming from that windows doesnt know how to handle 2 subnets with netbios. Built only for dumb simple usage in a typical home? Seems odd I cannot tell netbios which subnet to route over.

 

[chrysalis]

anta it stuck in my head what you said about it been cached until next reboot, since I had updates waiting for me to reboot, I rebooted this machine.

After the reboot its working normally again.

The other machine is also working even without a reboot although I have just installed updates on it and is rebooting now.

 

[chev65]

You should be able to use more than one subnet by going into the advanced TCP/ip properties and listing your subnets there. But getting three routers to work on a single network isn't something I'd ever want to mess with.

 

[anta]

wow, I thought that there was quite a complicated setup here.
I don't think I have ever owned three routers....let alone have them all on at the same time. lol.
I have found myself loads of problems by leaving servers half cocked, ie patched but not rebooted. it is possible that this was the cause of the problem all along.

anyhow we are where we are. just for a little heads up.

Daisy chaining devices pretty much puts them all on the same subnet (unless you have the ability to change router and port configs or use an uplink port) pretty much creating a flat network.
Also, supernetting on any network let alone a private ip address range is a serious concept which when not designed properly can be thrawt with problems, get one calculation or simply one octet input wrong and you are f'd.

to add to Chevs advice, you may be better employing your routers as routers and NAT and giving them different private network addresses. you may find some ideas here....

Private network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
wiki is awesome I just wish it was around when i was starting out in networking, still use it today...

also, have you ever thought of putting seperate network cards into your pcs, as when dealing with secure and semi insecure networks I always try to seperate those out, as once a bridge between the two is in place, all computers/devices on that network are insecure.

anyhow I am really chuffed we had some sort of success in sorting your issues.

 

[chrysalis]

yeah what chev said I already did. It seems its fine but just needed a reboot to clear out the netbios cache.