Windows shares not mounting

[MBSteve]

Hi all,

I do not see myself as a pro with linux but I am deffinitely not a novice either. I have installed LinuxMCE successfully. I have two networks, as recommended, one external connected to an ADSL modem and one internal connected to a hub. The internal network now uses MCE as a DHCP server.

MCE has detected my Windows XP PC and has assigned it an ip address, as expected. I can also browse the internet from the WinXP box through MCE as a firewall. All this shows that I do not have any connectivity issues (that I am aware of).

Now the orbiter has discovered the XP box and I have assigned it as a "file server", it then found my network shares automatically and I assigned them to use the default MCE directory structure. This is where I am starting to get into a bit of trouble. I understand that when I assign a shared drive to use the MCE directory structure it is meant to create a structure on the windows share that is something like:
/public/...
/user1/...
/user2/...

This does not happen. The shares on windows has the "Everyone" user set to full control.

The second, and probably related, problem is that the shared XP drives do not mount on MCE. From the /home/public/data/videos/ folder I do see the windows shares with names something like "WINDOWS SHARE: DVD [38]. I also see these shares point to a folder under /mnt/devices/ called 35/public/data/videos. This is all as expected, but when I go to /mnt/devices there are no mount points there.

When I try to rip a (non-copyrighted) DVD using the orbiter, I try to assign the destination directory to be the windows share stated above, the available space is 0MB even though it is a directory on an empty 500GB drive.

I have looked through the forums for the last 2 days without any luck (although I have made progress) and I hope someone can help me out.

Some more info:
 I have set the share on XP to allow full control to everybody. I am not on a domain. My network structure is <internet> --> <ADSL modem> --> <LinuxMCE> --> <network hub> --> <WinXP>. I do NOT have a password for my user on the xp box, it is blank. I can see the folders on the MCE box from winXP network neighbourhood. What am I missing...

Thanks very much...

[colinjones]

When it detects the "file server", what login name and password do you give it? I am presuming you are giving it the login name which you say has no password and then leaving the password query blank? Can you try setting a decent length password for that account (or creating another account and setting one for that and then using this during the pnp part) just to make sure there are no issues with having no (or too short) password. Also, make sure the account is an admin to eliminate any obscure permissions issues. Can't remember for Windows in workgroup/home mode - is there a Security Log under Computer Management? If so, review any Audit Failure messages (you may have to crank up the logging level first) - you should see several entries for each connection whether it was successful or not. If you are seeing Audit Failure messages for these connection attempts then you have found your problem and you need to research the messages to see exactly what the issue is. If they are successes or not mentioned at all then we need to try something else. If no entries at all, see if you can forceably cause some messages to be logged by manually mapping from LMCE or better yet another XP machine, or even from itself (loop back) just to confirm that the logging system is actually capturing messages at all - don't want to be chasing a red herring!

[MBSteve]

Hi Colin,

Thanks for the reply (and all the other helpful posts you and other linux buffs have made).

I got the share to mount, eventually. I ended up sifting through logs and found that /var/logs/syslog kept on saying something like "automount failed on device 41 - sharename". It would say this on every windows share. I then did two things, I am not sure which one worked but one or both these changes solved my problem.

First I created a new user on the windows box with a password and assigned this user admin rights  and remote assistance rights (probably unneccesary) as well as full control over the windows shares (both the share and the security). Like you suggested.

Secondly I removed the spaces from my share name on the windows box, it used to be "DVD Movies" and now it is "DVDMovies".

After these two changes I deleted the server using the admin website. Linux MCE detected it again, as well as each of my shares, I typed in the new username and password and then it worked magically.

I honestly think that this is a combination of both the above changes that fixed the problem.

Thanks alot.