Filesharing over LAN

sjcf1

sjcf1

sjcf1

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West Yorkshire/Birmingham
Hi,

Tomorrow, I've got a second broadband line coming into the house, currently we have BT, the new one is provided by sky, both have their own routers which that line has to be connected through.

My PC's and my sisters laptop will use the new sky internet, and my dads computers will use the old bt internet. However, we'll need to share files over the two computers. Ideally I'd like to just keep the normal windows networking, as that's what my family are used to, and teaching them another program wouldn't be a pleasant experience.

I've done some searching around and it appears quite difficult to do this.

Has anyone tried to do this before, and can anyone advise me on how to get this problem sorted. The sky broadband is going live tomorrow evening, and I don't want to be doing it all night.

Thanks in advance.
 
Should be easy enough, but the specifics will depend in part on how each device connects to the LAN, i.e. wired or wireless.
 
We've got 4 laptops which all connect over wireless, and 2 desktops - more when I have friends over, which all use wired connections, although thats done through a different router.
 
So basically both the BT and Sky connections will have wireless devices using them and may as well have their own wireless networks (different SSID's and different channels). Cable between the BT and Sky routers, with them both in the same subnet on different IP addresses, say 192.168.1.1. and 192.168.1.2. DHCP turned off on the BT router with all your dad's devices configured manually to use the BT router as the gateway, on IP addresses outside the DHCP range on the Sky router.
 
You've slightly confused me there.

Essensially, I need to put a cat 5/6 cable from the sky to the BT one, each of the different broadbands has its on wireless network, so devices can connect and disconnect when they want between the two wireless networks.

When you say configure devices manually, does that just mean you connect the device to one network?

Sorry for being slightly stupid here.
 
Is there guides out there how to do this, or is it fairly easy to figure out?
 
So only your dads PC will use the BT connection? if so, just wire everything up as a single network, turn DHCP off on the BT router and manualy set up your dads PC to use a static IP and the BT router as its default gateway. Every other device will use DHCP from the sky router which will use the sky router as a default gateway.

As has been already mentioned you will have to manualy configure some settings, but if your dads PC is the only one using the BT connection then thats the only one you need to manualy setup.

What OS is your dads PC using? I'm sitting infront of a vista machine so can guide you through step by step the process to set static IPs and default gateway settings but if your dad uses a different OS the steps my vary.
 
He's using windows XP, tried to convince him to move to 7 but he refuses, due to him using his laptop 24/7. My desktop may connect to it aswell. But I have no problem plugging my wire into the BT hub.

I'll be setting it up tomorrow evening, at about half 5, when I get in.

But I will take anyone up on the offer of running me through it.
 
Well this is the way I would do it on your dads PC, but this is for vista so the steps to get to the static IP screen may be a little different. Also, make sure you disable DHCP on your dads router.

1. Right click network icon -> properties
2. manage network connections
3. rightclick the network adapter -> properties

this should bring up a window with a list that should contain things like 'client for microsoft networks', 'file and printer sharing for microsoft networks' etc...

4. click on internet protocol version 4 -> properties
5. click the 'use the following IP address'
6. enter an unused IP address on the same LAN subnet, for example if all computers use 192.168.0.x then set it to use 192.168.0.2 (255.255.255.0 subnet mask) or any other number if .2 is already in use. set the default gateway to the IP of the router that connects to the ISP you want to use.
7. Copy the DNS settings from that router, and use them addresses in the 'use the following DNS servers' box.

This should mean that the computer will use the listed 'default gateway' as its source for the internet, and as long as all other computers are still on the same network (192.168.0.x) then they should all be able to comunicate with eachother as normal, just using different gateways to the internet.

Any other computers needing to use that ISP will also need to use them steps, because otherwise it will get it's DHCP from the other router, which will make it the default gateway for internet access.
 
Thanks for explaining it, will give this a try tomorrow night and report back. Really am greatful for the help guys :)
 
sjcf1 said:
He's using windows XP, tried to convince him to move to 7 but he refuses, due to him using his laptop 24/7. My desktop may connect to it aswell. But I have no problem plugging my wire into the BT hub.

I'll be setting it up tomorrow evening, at about half 5, when I get in.

But I will take anyone up on the offer of running me through it.
Click to expand...

if its setup as above, then plugging a wire into the bt hub wont actually make a difference.

As everything will be in 1 network, it doesn't matter when you are plugged in, if you are setup to use the sky router, plugging into the bt hub u will still go via the sky router.

if you want to use a different router then u need to manually configure it.

the default gateway option is the ip address of the router you want to go via.
setting it to the sky router ip then u'll go via that, regardless of how you are connected, same for setting it to the bt hub, u'll go via that hub instead.

also make sure both routers have different ips but on the same subnet
a lot of routers all default to the same ip
 
I think the homehubs default to 192.168.1.254 and the sky ones usually to 192.168.0.1. You would simply need to change one of the routers LAN IP address into the range of the other. I would set the sky to 192.168.0.1 and BT to 192.168.0.2 and set all devices on static ips startiing 192.168.0.10.

You can leave DHCP on, on one of the routers and then any devices that come to visit (friends maybe) wont have to to through setting up static IPs.

Basically;

Sky router 192.168.0.1, DHCP On, DHCP range 192.168.0.100-110
BT router 192.168.0.2, DHCP Off

Devices you want to connect to Sky internet;
IP address : 192.168.0.XX (.10-19)
Subnet Mask : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway : 192.168.0.1

Devices you want to connect to BT internet;
IP address : 192.168.0.XX (.20-29)
Subnet Mask : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway : 192.168.0.2

You will have to change the numbers if you need more than 10 devices on one of the routers, but thats pretty much it.
 
Nice. Should always have been doable as long as you could connect the 2 routers. Just a fair bit of faffing about and lots of different devices needing configuring :)
 
Yeah, I got it setup, working, but since there was only one pc using the BT side of things, he's decided just to connect to the sky one, when he wants something off another computer. Nice and fast install, was on the sky net within a couple of mins.
 
All Good advice above.

One other option would be a Dual WAN Router - Draytek, would cost you a small fortune but provide what you need.
 
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