Help with Laptop to Laptop

**twistyblue** · 01-31-2006, 04:08 PM

I need help. my hp laptop is acting weird theres a problem with the OS (window XP Home), so I use Knoppix 3.9. I want to link Hp laptop to My working computer (window XP Pro) so i can get the files saved on my HP Laptop to my working COmputer. How can I do this? I have cable, so I would like to network it.

**Harry Kuhman** · 01-31-2006, 04:22 PM

The simplest way to network 2 computers is with a router, a device that any high speed user is foolish not to have anyway. See answer #4.

Assuming that you are talking about an Ethernet cable and you want to ignore the above advice about the router, then this can only be done with a special "cross over cable". The normal straight through ethernet cable will not work (unless your nic has special autosensing hardware to detect this case, something I've seen in some routers and switches but never in a laptop NIC). So you would either need to make or buy a cross over cable. If you had the hardware to make one then you very likely also own a router. If you can't make your own the you will likely find that the cost of an inexpensive router (that even includes a standard cable) has dropped so low that it is less expensive than a cross over cable.

If you have or obtain a cross over cable then you need to manually set up two different IP addresses in the two computers (since you will not have a DHCP server) and the related network settings. At that point you should be able to use a number of networking tools to transfer files.

**ruymbeke** · 01-31-2006, 08:10 PM

Originally Posted by Harry Kuhman

...unless your nic has special autosensing hardware to detect this case, something I've seen in some routers and switches but never in a laptop NIC)...

AFAIK, most if not all Gigabit network cards support by specification the auto sensing feature. As an example, my IBM Thinkpad laptop have gigabit lan and do not require a cross over cable when connecting to an other computer (gigabit or not).

Originally Posted by twistyblue

I need help. my hp laptop is acting weird theres a problem with the OS (window XP Home), so I use Knoppix 3.9. I want to link Hp laptop to My working computer (window XP Pro) so i can get the files saved on my HP Laptop to my working COmputer. How can I do this? I have cable, so I would like to network it.

I suggest to boot your laptop with knoppix and start the terminal server from the knoppix menu.
This script will allow you to assign a static IP address to your laptop and start a DHCP server (on your laptop)
for your desktop to get an IP adress from. Then start samba (windows file sharing) from the knoppix menu
to allow your desktop to access your laptop files (in read only mode). Then if your desktop is running XP,
from a console type "ipconfig /renew" to get the new IP adress from your Knoppix running laptop
and look for your laptop (\\knoppix) in the network neigborhood and for the shared devices/partitions (hda1, ...)
I use this way very often when travelling and looking for file tranfert with others...
Hope this helps,
Gilles

PS: In some ways, I regret the awful but simple NetBeui protocol
which allow 98 computers to exchange data without IP adresses.

**Harry Kuhman** · 01-31-2006, 08:42 PM

Originally Posted by ruymbeke

AFAIK, most if not all Gigabit network cards support by specification the auto sensing feature. As an example, my IBM Thinkpad laptop have gigabit lan and do not require a cross over cable when connecting to an other computer (gigabit or not).

That is interesting information that I was unaware of. But in this case twisty is using two HP laptops, and unless they differ greatly from my HJP notebook and others I have used they will not have autosensing and will need a router, switch, hub or cross over cable.

This, of course, is the physical interconnect level and it doesn't matter if you talk TCP/IP, NetBeui or anythig else on top of that.