Way OT: networking/file sharing between an old PC and an even older Mac

[Bob Ross]

I have a PC running Windows Vista Home Edition, and a Mac G4 running OSX 10.3.9 (Panther), both hardwired via ethernet to a Verizon FiOS modem/router.

I used to be able to get the D: drive of the PC to show up on the Mac desktop simply by Command-K ("connect to server") on the Mac and then selecting the IP address of the PC (which had conveniently already prepopulated the dropdown list thanks to the coworker who set this up for me a dozen years ago).

It no longer connects. I keep getting an "Error -36".

I have confirmed that the IP address of the PC is entered correctly.

Oddly, I had this exact same problem about a year ago…but it “self-corrected” after a couple of days. (?!?!)

Any idea what’s going on? Thanks.

[rec head]

I have no real idea but if it "self corrected" before I would first try restarting one or all of the devices.

[j44ke]

After Command-K, have you just clicked "Browse" and looked to see if the PC appears? If so, you should be able to connect with an admin password by clicking "Connect As..."

[Bob Ross]

After Command-K, have you just clicked "Browse" and looked to see if the PC appears?

Hmm... The PC does not appear.

fwiw, if I navigate to my router's IP address from either the Mac or the PC it shows both computers on the network. Not sure if that's germane.

[sk_tle]

Is any firewall (or other "security software") running on those 2 machines ? In Mac OS X network utility there is a port scan tab. You could enter the remote ip address and launch a scan. Port 445 needs to be reachable for mounting the shared drive.

Also, a quick check tells me that error code -36 usually show up when there are inconsistent dot files on the filesystem and they can be deleted safely. Locally on mac OS this can be done by the dot_clean utility but on the windows machine you should be able to achieve the same thing by deleting any .DS_store .trashes and basically any file prefixed with a dot on that D: drive. Rename the file using an underscore instead of the dot if you don't feel comfortable deleting files.