file sharing problems

[mareska]

Greetings all,

I am home for the weekend trying to get the parent's computer working again. They have a beige 300mhz AV powermac with 384 (give or take) of ram running OS 9.1. Firewire card installed and 8gig HD partitioned into 2 equal parts, one for programs/OS, one for data.

The problem: File sharing cannot be enabled. A storm rolled through here a couple days ago while the computer was on and the power went out. Upon restarting the computer, everything works fine except the file sharing. At startup, a dialog box pops up stating "File sharing could not be enabled". No error code or warnings.

Zapped pram, checked extensions and startup items - all active. Ran Norton DiskDoctor, no dice. Don't have diskWarrior, but I really don't think it works all that well (have had more problems after running it than before it was run). Tried turning on file sharing manually from the control panel - same dialog box. Cannot access the sharing portion of the Get Info window of the hard drives 'cause the file sharing is not enabled.      

Any idea what is going on? Any clue on what else to check? What am I overlooking that is staring me in the face? Anything else to do other than re-install the OS?

The parents use the powermac as the station to transfer files from their powerbook. That's why they need the file sharing on.

Thanks in advance!

-Spiff    

[taliesin]

This is a long and perhaps very wide shot.
Have you checked to see that all the internet/network connections are what they were before the storm?

Or what you think they were?

Incidentally, I'm surprised by, but not questioning, your comment on DiskWarrior. Quite simply because I don't think I've ever seen anyone else say it caused more problems than it fixed before...
My luckier long-standing experience is that if it can't fix (rare), it doesn't touch.

[kelly]

Is AppleTalk turned on?

Personal Sharing: File Sharing Can't Be Enabled Message

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=11368

[mareska]

Yup, appletalk is turned on. Even tried turning it off and starting sharing, but another dialog box came up and said appletalk must be turned on. And so it was. And so I got the message yet again.

Tried trashing the preferences. File sharing, system, all that related stuff. Still no dice.

Not sure what the connection referenece was referring to. I can still use their computer quite well without any other glitches. As a matter of fact, I am replying on it right now.

Any other ideas would be appreciated.

-Spiff

[mareska]

OK, disregard that last post. I should have followed every option posted to the end  


Kelly, has anyone told you that you are a genius?  

The link to file  sharing not being enabled did it. The data hard drive only had 80K left of space.  Erased 6mb of space and whamo! File sharing enabled!  

Thank you for all your help. Much appreciated. Now I don't have to rebuild the startup volume.  Saved me an hour of work. At least!

-Spiff    

[pendragon]

Some ideas (well, ok, guesses)...

How 'bout checking the Extension Manager or Conflict Catcher and ensuring that File Sharing, File Sharing Extension, and File Sharing Library are all (still) enabled?

Also, is there anything in the Startup Folder that can preclude File Sharing from launching?

And finally, can you run Conflict Catcher to ensure there are no extension conflicts?

Harv

[kelly]

What? Not Super Genius?

http://ci310rmc.tripod.com/resume.htm