Having two network connections on a PC

[Musicman]

I currently connect wirelessly to enable me to connect to the internet, however, I have a networkable disk, which I would like to configure up by plugging into my LAN port.

Currently I can only have one or the other network connections working, I know I need to do something with the network settings, but cannot work out what, can anyone help?

[MovedGoalPosts]

I suspect you would need to set it up using some form of internet connection sharing, if you want it to bee seen by other PCs on the network too, so that your PC acts as the gateway. Having said that do you have a router that the disk could be plugged into direct?

If you just need it to be seen by your PC, a simple ethernet connection between the PC and disk should suffice (it might need to be crossover, and just assign fixed IP addys to the PC port and disk?

cant you plug the disk into your router?

[Aragorn]

You are probably having routing issues, ie with the LAN port active, the OS is trying to route internet traffic through there rather than the wireless.

Assuming you are running WinXP, plug in the Disc & activate the Wlan and post the results of the following commands entered at the command prompt ('Start', 'Run', "CMD")

ipconfig /all
route print

(Note - if it reports any external (NTL) ip addresses, you might want to hide the last two numbers, eg 81.23.x.x)

[pop80_uk]

What router have you got? Has it got a hub built in?

I agree with other that you are possibly having routing issues concerning the LAN settings and Win XP is picking up a conflict between the default setttings

[Musicman]

The router is a Linksys WRT54G.

WHat I have discovered, is that with the hard disk plugged in, (which also has a router in it), I cannot connect to the internet, though I can browse other hard disks vis the Linksys router.

So the problem appears to me, to be that I require to somehow force the PC to use the wireless connection for the Internet.

---------- Post added at 18:26 ---------- Previous post was at 17:52 ----------

Originally Posted by Aragorn

You are probably having routing issues, ie with the LAN port active, the OS is trying to route internet traffic through there rather than the wireless.

Assuming you are running WinXP, plug in the Disc & activate the Wlan and post the results of the following commands entered at the command prompt ('Start', 'Run', "CMD")

ipconfig /all
route print

Well here is the results of these two commands: -

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : SONYLAPTOP
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : LAN-Express AS IEEE 802.11g miniPCI
Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0E-9B-00-80-25
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.100
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 194.168.8.100
194.168.4.100
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 10 November 2006 18:06:45
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 11 November 2006 18:06:45

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : SiS 900-Based PCI Fast Ethernet Adap
ter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 08-00-46-AA-A5-85
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.200.206
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.200.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.200.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.200.1
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 10 November 2006 18:22:42
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 11 November 2006 06:22:42

C:\Documents and Settings\Gary>route print
================================================== =========================
Interface List
0x1 ........................... MS TCP Loopback interface
0x70003 ...00 0e 9b 00 80 25 ...... LAN-Express AS IEEE 802.11g miniPCI Adapter
- Packet Scheduler Miniport
0x70005 ...08 00 46 aa a5 85 ...... SiS 900-Based PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter - Pa
cket Scheduler Miniport
================================================== =========================
Active Routes:
Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.100 25
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.200.1 192.168.200.206 20
127.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 1
192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.100 192.168.1.100 25
192.168.1.100 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 25
192.168.1.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.1.100 192.168.1.100 25
192.168.200.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.200.206 192.168.200.206 20
192.168.200.206 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 20
192.168.200.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.200.206 192.168.200.206 20
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 192.168.1.100 192.168.1.100 25
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 192.168.200.206 192.168.200.206 20
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.1.100 192.168.1.100 1
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.200.206 192.168.200.206 1
Default Gateway: 192.168.200.1
================================================== =========================
Persistent Routes:
None

[Aragorn]

Yep - as suspected the default route to the internet is via 192.168.200.1 - the wired interface.

The solution should be

route add -p 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 metric 1

This should add a persistent default route via the wireless. Give it a go and let us know.

---------- Post added at 19:42 ---------- Previous post was at 19:41 ----------

This page has a description of the route command on XP.

[Musicman]

Yes that has done it, Thanks for that.

I should of remembered I needed to do a command like that, as at work a couple of years ago, we had to type a route command to access part of our LAN.