Can't connect Mac to Windows network drive

Question

I am the only Mac in a PC college. I frequently have to connect to shared folders on the PC network. For six months I could "connect to server... cifs://name" with no problems. Last month, this suddenly stopped working (error = server may not exist). My office IT people told me to switch to smb://name and it worked again for at least a day. Now I can't get it to connect at all. The finder can see the PC server in the shared pane, but it won't connect to it. "Connect to server" won't connect either, no matter how I try. I get the "server may not exist" error, the "volume won't mount" error, or the "not all data is readable" error. The local IT people say they haven't changed anything and all the Windows people are fine. As the lone Mac user, I don't think much help is forthcoming from IT here. I don't know much about this sort of thing, so any suggestions would be most appreciated.
I do not know if the problem coincides with the update to 10.5.6 or not.

Answer 1

Karen –
Unfortunately I think that 10.5.6 broke several aspects of MS Windows support. If you were to GOOGLE ‘can’t connect to windows shares with os x 10.5.6’ you will find plenty. I personally have not upgraded to 10.5.6 because of it. Though not the best method you may want to consider using the IP address of the system you are connecting to.
smb://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/<share name>
Obviously I know that this is easier than said especially if you are the only Mac on the network, I am sure the College IT group is just going to fall on their swords to help you with this or even providing you this information. With that said you may be able to get the IP by trying to ‘PING’ the server’s name. To do this open a Terminal session on your Mac and type the following at the prompt:
ping <server name>
You should get a something like this:
PING <server name> (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx): 56 data bytes
Now let me caution you, I am sure that the college has turned of PING reply on their network you will most likely get the line above and that is it. Also depending how aggressively they monitor their network for such activities you may show up on some report. Given that I would suggest that if possible you find someone in the IT group that is somewhat sympathetic to your problem and let them know what you are attempting to do.
Not the best answer but I know that using the IP instead of the server name seems to work.
Best of luck.
BH