PLEASE SAVE MY NEW JOB!!!!

FrankJH said:
Very true - just surprising it happened over night with no justification but your comment is taken onboard. Thank you
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Your welcome, i have had users who swore they did nothing and find they rolled their chair over the network cable crushing it completely (hard to spot also). Also i have had cables just suddenly fail, i couldnt explain it, i just get the crimper out and make a new one! :)
 
FrankJH said:
No firewall active on pc - and no upgrade that could have potentially turned it on ( we have hardware firewalls in server room, so dont require any "windows" ones - and this even interferes with some apps we use anyway.

Unfortunately there was no other port to use, so that wasnt really an option.

I couldnt ping the DC ( dont know what a gc is, and guessing the gw is gateway?)

We came to the conclusion that the mobo inbuilt netowrk adaptor was failing for some reason ( it was a pretty ancient compaq EN machine)

My boss came in late with a bootable piece of software called "EFN" or something similar - will update on Monday when I copy it lol - but it was an XP shell basically with a "Locksmith" program available

The Admin account name had been changed to someone's name ( who had left the company yearsss ago) and no one on the IT team had even met or knew about the username / password - so first thing I did was change name to something more suitable

Still want to work out why XP wont burn a proper copy of the Ultimate Boot CD ISO, it literally just burns the ISO itself ( ie in explorer you see one ISO file rather than all the files it should contain)

Thank you everyone for all your assistance - not really sure why I deserved the remarks that have been edited out but hey ho
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Good luck with the system. I think the comments were mainly because you had (inadvertently) turned a fairly straightforward problem into a more complicated one due to being naive/ inexperienced when it comes to networking. It happens, and imo I think there should have been more support/knowledge from your more senior techs then you wouldnt have had to resort to pulling your hair out posting here :) (p.s. if you're company has any openings higher up the scale let me know, it sounds like they could do with me!)

As it turns out it looks like the problem was a possible hardware fault (which would have also been shown up if you had given it a new IP address on the DHCP server or set it up statically incidentally).

I think part of the problem is that you are obviously fairly well-versed with the day-to-day running of a corporate network using the Microsoft tools and obviously understand concepts like domains, workgroups and permissions but have holes in your knowledge when it comes to whats happening "under the hood". Of course there are only two ways to gain this knowledge- experience (both good and bad) and by studying computer architecture from the bottom-up, which is an extremely dull, but important facet of academic computer science :)

I do think some of the comments were unwarranted and unjustified, and Im probably one of the most BoFH-ey people here and quite possibly one of the posters who suffers fools least gladly. Just try and take any criticism constructively on the chin, and learn the lessons for next time. Remember the front cover to the Hitchiker's Guide: Don't panic ;)
 
FrankJH said:
No firewall active on pc - and no upgrade that could have potentially turned it on ( we have hardware firewalls in server room, so dont require any "windows" ones - and this even interferes with some apps we use anyway.

Unfortunately there was no other port to use, so that wasnt really an option.

I couldnt ping the DC ( dont know what a gc is, and guessing the gw is gateway?)
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frank dont you have spare pc about?

FrankJH said:
No firewall active on pc - and no upgrade that could have potentially turned it on ( we have hardware firewalls in server room, so dont require any "windows" ones - and this even interferes with some apps we use anyway.

Unfortunately there was no other port to use, so that wasnt really an option.
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when i said the above "if you cant look at the cat cable see if it is connected to the port next swap cables if that dont work swap ports, ( use a port from another pc that can get a dhcp addy)," every time you do what i said example" check cable test using cmd tool, move to next swap cable test using cmd line tools then swap ports ( ie pick up pc and move it to another location desk or if you cant then go to the comms room swap port at the switch side) i assume you have the desktop pc ie compaq or dell )test using cmd tools etc.. also look at the back of the pc see the colour of the led.
you ll learn its all learning.
 
Windows XP doesn't natively support ISOs so that's why it doesn't burn the contents to the CD, just the ISO file itself. You'll need third party software to do that

Check out the lease range on the DHCP server. I had the exact problem you describe at work and it turned out that the range of IPs was insufficient (some people brought in their laptops and used up the spare ones). This meant that the PC could not get an IP from the DHCP server causing the problem you describe

Replacing the cable is always a good place to start though :)
 
Mokujin - very true users can do silly things like that which they consider not important, fortunately (even though no one on here knew this) all cables are tidied away under desk etc, so i could immediately discount accidental cable damage like that. Also with constant network activity on the pc, I thought it fair to summise that the port ( both deskside and in server/ comms room) were working ok. Maybe this is wrong from your experience - please tell me if this is the case - but i thought it a fair bet.

LAughs - I have a BEng in electronics ( graduated in 98) and a big part of the course was networking - I cant agree more that "under the hood" is intensely boring !!! I am pretty good with anything deskside, ie if its anythign to do with the solitary pc, I can usually locate and fix the problem either hardware or software pretty quickly but I am the first to recognise my networking skills need a lot of work!!

Should have "Dont Panic" as my motto - I wouldnt normally care so much but being a brand new job and the guy coming in with the fault when I was the only one on duty made it my responsibility - when my colleagues couldnt sort it I was already feeling better but still wanted to solve the problem myself if I could.

As to finding you a job........... well not sure they would take my recommendation just yet lol three IT hardware guys in a company of 40 people in total, most would probably say it was IT heavy already!!!!

CrashUK

As stated above maybe my thoughts were wrong but surely if there was network activity (and not the sort or flaky intemitant kind ) this surely indicates both cable and ports are ok? Therefor had to be hardware failure of some kind, or a server causing problems with dhcp

thanks aj - I wonder why this has been left out ( iso native support) and no doubt it would be easily put in as an update if MS wanted to?

Yeah I think this might be something to do with it as some do bring in laptops in addition to their workstations

Thanks again everyone
 
FrankJH said:
Mokujin - very true users can do silly things like that which they consider not important, fortunately (even though no one on here knew this) all cables are tidied away under desk etc, so i could immediately discount accidental cable damage like that. Also with constant network activity on the pc, I thought it fair to summise that the port ( both deskside and in server/ comms room) were working ok. Maybe this is wrong from your experience - please tell me if this is the case - but i thought it a fair bet.

LAughs - I have a BEng in electronics ( graduated in 98) and a big part of the course was networking - I cant agree more that "under the hood" is intensely boring !!! I am pretty good with anything deskside, ie if its anythign to do with the solitary pc, I can usually locate and fix the problem either hardware or software pretty quickly but I am the first to recognise my networking skills need a lot of work!!

Should have "Dont Panic" as my motto - I wouldnt normally care so much but being a brand new job and the guy coming in with the fault when I was the only one on duty made it my responsibility - when my colleagues couldnt sort it I was already feeling better but still wanted to solve the problem myself if I could.

As to finding you a job........... well not sure they would take my recommendation just yet lol three IT hardware guys in a company of 40 people in total, most would probably say it was IT heavy already!!!!

CrashUK

As stated above maybe my thoughts were wrong but surely if there was network activity (and not the sort or flaky intemitant kind ) this surely indicates both cable and ports are ok? Therefor had to be hardware failure of some kind, or a server causing problems with dhcp

thanks aj - I wonder why this has been left out ( iso native support) and no doubt it would be easily put in as an update if MS wanted to?

Yeah I think this might be something to do with it as some do bring in laptops in addition to their workstations

Thanks again everyone
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thats why i said "also check the system log on the client pc, check events on the dhcp"
cables over time become corrupt, even if they are hidden away.
 
FrankJH said:
As stated above maybe my thoughts were wrong but surely if there was network activity (and not the sort or flaky intemitant kind ) this surely indicates both cable and ports are ok? Therefor had to be hardware failure of some kind, or a server causing problems with dhcp
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As i mentioned, if you have a pin out somewhere you could still ping etc a machine but you couldnt join a domain.
 
masterk said:
As i mentioned, if you have a pin out somewhere you could still ping etc a machine but you couldnt join a domain.
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lol i remember having that problem could ping etc.. but i couldnt print out.
 
Very true, the log should be read for future reference to see what happened.

Masterk - yeah if a pin is out of place then that could cause problems - but the pc and cable where completely in a stable situation, so I personally think this was stretching the possibility of this being the cause - with a freshly used cable then by all means for sure



Again thank you everyone - I certainly learned a few things so glad that i started this post - even if slightly embarassing lol
 
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