Larry,

If you're connecting through a router, you'll probably have to set up "passive mode" in both IE and SmartFTP. That's under "Tools/Internet Options/Advanced/Browsing" in IE.

Jim

Jim,

Both IE and SmartFTP were already set to passive mode (I checked) but thanks for the suggestions. I will check out some of the other links though.

Larry

Hi Jim,

Well, no luck still. The other links were helpful but didn't resolve the issue.

Any more ideas please?

Larry

Larry,

The links listed in my "signature" are of a general nature, and may not apply in a given situation. One that might be halpful is the very last one in the "XP Networking help" section (Repair tool for Winsock 2 Problems). Did you try downloading and running that?

Let's gather a bit of history. Was FTP working before SP2 installed? Do you recall any changes to your system that were made just before the problem began? Have you scanned the system for viruses and spyware/malware using SpyBot and Ad-Aware?

Also, double-check your firewall settings. Having both the Microsoft SP2 firewall and McAfee's installed can cause problems.

Jim

Jim,

The system is new and came with sp2 installed already. The Windows firewall is disabled and I temporarily disabled the McAfee firewall to try ftp. If it had worked without the firewall, I would have enabled it with the appropriate settings.

I tried downloading the AdAware but haven't been able to yet. I will try this again but can't imagine that I have gotten something 'bad' using the Internet already, especially since the McAfee security system has been running all along. I guess its possible though.

Anyway, I've only had the system for 10 days and I just tried using ftp about 3 days ago. Normal downloads work fine (with http emulating ftp).

Thanks for any help

Larry

Larry,

Malware isn't always detected by antivirus products. And if it's malware, it may have slipped in "under the radar" of the network security settings.

So FTP has never been known to work on the system, right? If you don't have much installed on the system yet, you might want to consider restoring it to its factory installed state using Dell's "PC Restore" utility.

That's pretty drastic if you've invested a lot of time installing and configuring things, though.

Jim

Thanks Jim,

I may try the restore option. I've loaded pretty much everything on the machine already but it bothers me that this won't work. I was going to spend the money on one of the software support options but that bothers me also - why should I pay to get help to fix something that should have been working in the first place.

Thanks for the help though, I appreciate it. If I decide to bite the bullet and do the restore, I will post the results.

Larry

Larry,

Restoring is a last resort, especially since you've invested considerable time in setting the machine up.

Have you tried looking for malware yet? I'd be very surprised if Dell's software support would be able to figure this one out.

Something this specific has to be either firewall-related or a result of some other software-based block.

Jim

Hi Jim,

I haven't tried AdAware yet because I can't download it from Download.com. I think it uses ftp in the background since I see a little popup window when I click on the download button. I'll try getting it on my other machine, transfer it and then run it. What a process!!

Do you know if the restore procedure mentioned brings everything back to the way it was by 'restoring' it from an area on the hard drive or does it clean everything off and load Windows, etc. from scratch?

Thanks

Larry

Larry,

I checked download.com's Ad-Aware download, and it indeed is via FTP. You may want to skip that step, and download HijackThis, a malware analysis and repair tool, from malwareremoval.com, and submit a log for review. That download is via HTTP.

DELL-ChrisM has posted an excellent set of notes on using HijackThis. Skip over the "cleanmgr" instructions, and begin with the step shown as "Go here". That's a link to ChrisRLG's "malwareremoval.com" site.

If you decide to post a HijackThis log, be sure to explain the problem, so the volunteer experts will know what to look for. You might also want to post a link back to this thread, so they can see what's been tried.

Regarding the Dell PC Restore utility - it restores the C: partition to the "as-shipped" state from Dell - drivers, other utilities, and all. It does that by replacing the contents of the C: partition from an image that's stored in a hidden partition on your drive. That means it wipes out everything on the C: partition!

Jim