NAS drive not being seen by network

Imnoexpert_2

Just bought a buffalo Linkstation LS210D.

My peer to peer network can't see it when it is plugged into the network upstairs (distributed from the router through a network switch) but it can be seen if I plug it into the router direct. It assigns it a higher ip address when plugged into the router (in the 200 range).

In the router it is visible (on LAN1 everything else is on LAN 4) but it is shown as 'not connected'.

I've tried a few things. Network discovery is on, I've changed the ip of the device to a fixed one, run the windows troubleshooter, phoned buffalo, and yes (before the bright spark who replied to my last problem pipes in) yes I have googled it.

I'm getting to the stage where I might start doing stuff I don't understand and may not be able to put back so before I do that I thought I would post here.

If anyone can help I would be grateful. Thanks

fwor

Imnoexpert wrote: »

It assigns it a higher ip address when plugged into the router (in the 200 range).

Can you explain this more clearly? Do you mean that devices are being assigned addresses such as 192.168.1.200 if connected to the router and addresses such as 192.168.1.1 if not?

It sounds as though you may have more than one device acting as a DHCP server on your network if you are getting assigned different addresses in different places.

Imnoexpert_2

Thanks for the speedy reply.

No I think you have understood it well. Difficult sometimes to describe IT problems without including too much or too little info.

Plugged into router you get 192.168.1.253 say, and in the network point you get 192.168.1.70 (with all the other network things around there).

The router showing LAN1 with just the NAS ( not connected) and all my other boxes are on LAN4 makes it look as if I have two networks.

If I do have two dhcp servers what can I do?

Naf

What sort of switch is it? Is that connected to the main router with a cable?

fwor

It's always difficult to say at a distance, but typically a router will always have a DHCP server built-in and default enabled. A network switch may have one, though often they are switched off by default. And if you have any servers on your network, any of those can be configured to run a DHCP server too, again disabled by default typically. So first thing I would do is look at the config of the switch and check it's DHCP server is turned off.

Another common reason for two networks that cannot see one another are non-matching network masks, so check these and make sure they are the same throughout. It's quite possible, for example, to manually assign IP addresses on the same subnet, but still have them effectively invisible to one another due to non-matching netmasks.

unforeseen

Sounds a bit like you have VLANs set up on your router

Imnoexpert_2

Just to say I have a netgear 8 port unmanaged switch which has a couple of pcs a printer and cctv attached and has been trouble free since it was installed.

debitcardmayhem

Imnoexpert wrote: »

Just to say I have a netgear 8 port unmanaged switch which has a couple of pcs a printer and cctv attached and has been trouble free since it was installed.

Is your nas attached to that ?

Imnoexpert_2

Thanks for diagnosing this. Really appreciate it.

Not sure how solve the problem though.

I'm a bit of a novice at this as most of the stuff I have bought has been simpler to install.

Any help appreciated.

toshi

Imnoexpert wrote: »

Just to say I have a netgear 8 port unmanaged switch which has a couple of pcs a printer and cctv attached and has been trouble free since it was installed.

I am not sure what you want to do, and what the problem is, I have assumed that you just want to add a buffalo Linkstation LS210D NAS to this existing network.

Assuming you are using 192.168.1.1- 192.168.1.254 range, I simply assign a fix IP address to Linkstation LS210D, say 192.168.1.250. You SHOULD use a fixed static IP for a file server, then the static IP setup will ignore DHCPs. (You can use two DHCP servers for a backup, but I would disable one as it would confuse you further. )

I will test if I can connect the Linkstation from one of PCs after this. .
1) test ping 192.168.1.250 from a computer
2) run \\192.168.1.250 to check the file sharing (assuming you have setup a network share properly.

Summery:
Assign a static IP to the NAS and check if you can connect to the NAS from your computers. (ping and file share \\192.168.1.250

As fwor said, you really have to tell us the basic network environment, it is really hard to understand. As unforeseen said, it looks like you have VLAN ? but I am not sure this is what you need.

It is better to focus on what you want to do, so I have assumed that you want to add a NAS to the existing network. (So we would like to know your current network setup) Keep your network simple now.

Happy computing ! ( Your Linkstation has a DLNA streaming function, it should be fun! Let's sort out your setup.

were

on some things it better to stay away from dynamic ip's and use static ip's. This is what they do in companies and enterprise environments.

on most routers you can set the dhcp start range, set this range to something like 192.168.1.100. This will make free the range from 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.99 to be able to be manually assigned to cameras, nas boxes and servers. I would set the most used device to .50 as it is easy to remember

write the ip on a label and stick it on the device, just in case you forget, or have to reconfigure.