Firewire networking

[Scooba da Bass]

Tomorrow I've got an XP laptop coming over that I need to copy a bunch of crap onto. It's not got a network card so I figured I could use a firewire cable between the two, once they are both plugged in how do I go about setting up the connection? Is it the same as the old style cable connection?

 

[Xavier]

4:44am? Crikey fella, don't you sleep? Heh.


Anyhow, firewire networking is actually easier than any of the old direct cable solutions, more like just using a crossover network lead between two NICs.

Make sure your firewire is enabled in your bios and have a look inside your Network Connections folder in control panel.

Check out the attached image, but basically you should end up with a 1394 connection showing as a network adapter, if you've only got firewire on your motherboard you'll get the one, if you've got a second firewire source like me (Audigy 2 plat ex) then you'll have a pair. You get one for each Firewire controller in your system, not port.

Set both machines up as you would normally, picking an IP range and manually assigning addresses. Remember to use a different address range to any running on other network devices installed in your PC, for example between your NIC and router, etc, if you have one, otherwise you'll find yourself kicked disconnected from the net while XP has a fit over two network adapters sharing a single IP.

You'll probably have to use UNC paths between the machines based on their IPs, unless you decide to set up DHCP (as the Firewire is a true network connection you can actually share internet access across it using ICS), so \\<ip.address.here>\<sharename>\

Any problems, let us know.

Xav