home network not working

[dmehling]

I am having trouble with my small home network. I have an older desktop set as the server on my network which is connected to my router via ethernet cable. The other computer on my network is my laptop which is connected to the router wirelessly. The server is connected to the printer, and I have print sharing enabled so that the laptop can print. Also I had several folders and drives on the server that were set to be shared so I could access them from the laptop. Everything was working fine until a brief power outage reset the IP address on my server. Now my laptop cannot access the printers and the shared folders and drives on my server. When I go to network places, the server still shows up as a workgroup computer, but I cannot access the computer when I click on it. I've tried running the network setup wizard several times on both computers to no avail. The computers are both running Windows XP professional. At this point I have no idea what to do to fix this very inconvenient problem.

 

[dmehling]

I failed to mention that when I said I cannot access my server from my network places, I was talking about my network places on my laptop.

 

[Macky]

If your using xp try setting your workgroup first so that you can see other computer on your lappie or to your server. Go to Start and right click on My Computer. Click Properties.
System Properties window will appear. Select Computer Name tab and click Change to change computer name and workgroup. You can key in computer description as an option also.then create a common workgroup.