seeing drives on network

18 replies [Last post]
Ian McDonald
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Joined: Apr 19 1999

Hi,
I have networked two computers together, seems to working OK, except that the computer without the 4 scssi 9gigs only sees 2 gig of space on each drive! The one with the drives attached sees the full 8.46 gig as normal. I run win95, and all the drives are mapped properly(I hope1).
Suggestions appreciated.
Ian.

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Ian

[This message has been edited by Ian McDonald (edited 21-04-99).]

Ian

bcrabtree
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Joined: Mar 7 1999

Ian,

What's the situation with big drives attached directly to the PC which CAN'T see the full amount on the other PC?

Could it be that the O/S on the first PC is an early version of Win95?

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Bob C

Ian McDonald
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Joined: Apr 19 1999

Hi Bob,
A note of setups

A. Plum card,millennium card, adaptec Scssi card, network card, scanner card, 2 x 4gig Ide ( as 1x1,1x3.1x4 gigs)
Both systems use the same version of Win95

B. Miro card(which includes an adaptec),modem,sound card, a poor graphics card(to be upgraded pronto) 1 x2.5gig Ide(as 1x2,1x.5)

The major difficulty is that Miro tools asks the OS how much space, and then will not capture because there is not enough space.
My workaround will be to buy one of the big drives as reviewed in the current issue of the best computer video magasine around, but this really does not solve the problem.
In the past, once, during the many setups,re installs, re formatting,ect, in getting the network running, it did work, but I have no idea how . Is it possibly a network problem?

Hope you can shed some light on it
Ian.

Ian

bcrabtree
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Joined: Mar 7 1999

Ian,

I'm afraid you've left me rather confused!

Are you saying you are trying to capture *across* the network?

If so, what network have you got. I'd be amazed if this worked on the best sort of network most folk have, which is 100base-T.

Are you also saying that it is only the miro software that sees the big drive at the wrong size?

Please give a good bit more info.

Cheers

Bob C

Ian McDonald
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Joined: Apr 19 1999

Bob
Confusion..... I got loads of it !!

Yes, I want to capture across the network.
I'm sure it worked once before!!
I have a Lynksys EtherFast 100BaseTX 4-port Desktop Hub with EtherFast 10/100 Lan Cards. It is supposed to run the fastest video,publishing,graphics, and databases.
And the network only sees 2 gig per drive, not just the Miro
I'm fast running out of hair to pull out!!
Ian

Ian

Ian McDonald
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Joined: Apr 19 1999

Bob, just spoke to the Linksys support, and they say its a ddos limitation, & speak to Microsoft, but I have never had any sense out of microsoft,ever.
Ian

Ian

Mark Brookes
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Joined: Apr 26 1999

I suspect you client PC (the one with the Miro) is running Windows 95a. Which only reports 1.99 GB for any network drives it is connected to even isf the drive is physically larger than this. This normally does not cause problems with most applications as the server decides out where to store the data on the disk. Can you capture a smaller file than this e.g 1Gb? Otherwise you will have to upgrade to WIN95 OSR2. To find which version of Win95 you have: From the Control Panel click the System Icon. If you see 4.00.950a in the system information you have OSR1.

Capturing over a network... The theroretical maximum data rate for your network is about 11Mbytes/sec, Real networks never achieve anything like this. But assuming everything in your set up is working optimally and no other PCs are on you network it may work. Good luck.

Ian McDonald
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Joined: Apr 19 1999

Yup....4.00950b
Still gently cracking up
Thanks for your post
Ian

Ian

jarroda
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Joined: Mar 31 1999

I have to admit to being confused too as to your 2Gb only limit if you are using Windows 95b.

Have you thought about installing Windows 98 to see if this remedies the problem..? I only sugest this as it seems that something in your 95b setup is using code from 95a. Upgrading should eliminate this.

-=-=-=-

More importantly I design and build computer networks / servers for a living.

I would not recommend that you try live capture over the network. By all means capture to a local drive and then store off-line data on remote machines, but try to avoid capture / playback over the network if you can.

The theoretical maximum speed of the network is good enough, but as Mark points out this is never acheived.

The problem with Ethernet is that works by transmitting data, seeing if there was a "collision" on the wire, and then try again after a random period. To make things worse, workstations don't just transmit when you ask them to..!

Whatever network you use (even 2 machines) there will always be collisions. The more data you send / recieve the worse this gets. Therefore keeping a constant data flow going (needed for data playback / capture) can be very difficult.

You don't actually state what Miro board you have or what rates you are capturing at, so it's difficult to assess how much trouble you will have, but I would try and use local storage if possible.

-=-=-=-=

One last thing. If the 2gb problem is down to the O/S then buying a large local drive is very unlikely to solve the issue. Instead you'll only be able to see 2Gb of that drive too.

Andy

Mark Brookes
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Joined: Apr 26 1999

I have checked several PCs on our network and it appears that all versions of Windows 95 report network shares limited to 1.99Gb, even if the PC has a local disk formatted with FAT 32 which allows greater than 2Gb local partitions. Windows 98 may solve the problem but I have no experience of it to be able to say either way. The only thing I know will allow you to see network shares larger than 2Gb is to Install Windows NT, a bit drastic I know, and not exactly cheap, unfortunatly.
Does anyone out there know if Win 98 will solve this?

jarroda
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Joined: Mar 31 1999

It's been a while since I used anything but NT on the desktop in a server environment.

However I have set-up 98 machines to access both NT and Netware servers with volumes hugely in excess of 2Gb.

Ian McDonald
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Joined: Apr 19 1999

Tesday evening
My main man who installed the network says no problem.... he will arrive tomorow night to fix it..... Ever hopefull... Will post results soonest......NT hmmm possibly in a previous install & re format it was NT which worked...... Thanks for all your interest in my problem.... Hope to return the favour at some point.....Will keep you posted

Ian

Ian

bcrabtree
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Joined: Mar 7 1999

Yes,

DO please keep us posted - if you are able to capture over a 100BaseT network you are likely to surprise a lot of people reading your posting.

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Bob C

Craig Fisher
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Joined: Apr 7 1999

What a weird setup. I could not beleive my eyes when I saw this posting. Networks are for communication with built in systems for lost packets-designed for reliable long distance connections : not a realy good idea to capture data using this system where every piece of information counts and being done a very high rate. Video Streaming maybe but not capture. Its a bit like using a screwdriver when you need a spanner.

I have a Win98 to Win95 network and checked the size of my disks from my win95 to win98 and they came up as 1.99 despite being 17 and 10 gig. Unfortunatley going the other way I only have a 1 gig disk on the win95 so could not determine what the win98 would record a larger than 2 gig disk. The Win95 is the B version with Fat32 file system which is the win98 file system. I would suspect that the underlying Dos system would limit the ability of Win98 to record a disk over 2 gig on a network drive. NT is your best bet as this does not have the underlying DOS system.

I hope that somebody can answer the $64 dollar question what does win98 report a >2gig disk on Win95 as over a network (Novell and NT servers are reported correctly from win95 and win98). Maybe Dr Solomon and his fiddlings may answer the question.

Best of Luck
Craig Fisher

[This message has been edited by Craig Fisher (edited 28-04-99).]

Ian McDonald
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Joined: Apr 19 1999

Still not working......I am less surprised than I was.... Looking at NT as a possible way forward.
Ian

Ian

bcrabtree
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Joined: Mar 7 1999

I don't think that NT will let you capture over a network, unless you move to a newer, faster network system than 100baseT.

What I would add is that with the 10/100baseT network I run at home, I can't see the capacity of any drives on the other PCs over the network - the top-most level I can see simply shows the drive letters, and doesn't let me see the properties of the drives. How are you accessing the drives on your other PC over the network?

Bob C

Mark Brookes
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Joined: Apr 26 1999

The drive size is only reported from drives that have been accessed by the client, e.g. by looking at the directory of the share in question at which time the drive size info is available. You may have to refresh [F5] the display before it becomes visible though. (N.B. this is from NT4 Workstation to NT4 Server).

[This message has been edited by Mark Brookes (edited 05-05-99).]

Ian McDonald
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Joined: Apr 19 1999

Hi Bob
My hub is a Lynksys etherfast TX-4 hub.

If I look across the network at network neighborhood\plum\any drive, I can see every fill on the drive,up to 8.46 gigs worth, ans access all of them, but properties does not show pie chart.
If I look across from my computer, same result,but I get a pie chart showing capacity of only 1.99gig.

Rersults looking across the other way are the same

Double checked the network user manual and it definitely says suitable for video....
Max data thruput 200megabits per sec in full duplex, and 100 megabits per sec in half duplex. (and it says it can do this straight out of the box..... I think its me going out of my box..)

Ian

[This message has been edited by Ian McDonald (edited 05-05-99).]

Ian

Ian McDonald
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Joined: Apr 19 1999

baseT hubs, is this the same as my baseTX hub?
As a new problem (just what I needed), the IBM 25 gig is dropping frames all over the place..... Bus driving seems a most attractive job.

Onwards....

Ian

Ian