Begin troubleshooting by examining the physical setup of the Ethernet Disk. Ideally, place the drive and the computer on the same switch or router. Make sure the cables are connected securely, and the lights near the Ethernet ports are on.
Disable any anti-virus or anti-spyware programs. IP configurator uses a less common protocol called ARP to find an Ethernet Disk. As this isn't often used by computer users, many firewall and security programs will interfere with it.
Connect the drive directly to the computer with an Ethernet cable (a crossover cable if the computer is more than a few years old.) This will determine if the router is interfering with ARP. If it works then, connect to the router's web administration page and look for the drive on the DHCP table. This term is different from router to router, but most can display a list of all connected computers (including the Ethernet disk.)
Lastly, access the drive directly and affect the services running. This can be done with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse connected, or through Remote Desktop Connection. Invoke Task Manager by pressing [CTRL] + [ALT] + [DELETE] on the keyboard ([CTRL] + [ALT] + [END] in Remote Desktop.) Choose Task Manager from the menu. Choose the users tab, and File, then Run new task. Type in "MMC" (without the quotes), and add the "Services" snap-in. There are several services that must be running for the drive to work correctly:
- W3SVC
- FTP publishing
- Server
There are others that should be on, as well, but these are the three that provide the basic functionality of the drive. Set them to "Automatic", then start the service.
If nothing works, the drive will need to be reset to factory settings.
