Hi Jim,

>After doing a fresh install of Win98 (to a formatted hard disk) the full home network was available and performing nicely.

You don't say whether this is a new machine introduced into the network or if this is a machine that was working fine before but doesn't work now after the installation of Win98. Also, how long was it working nicely?

>
>Since then I have not really had call to use it until today. When I tried (from the Win98 machine) I saw no other machines. Trying the other machines, they couldn't see the Win98 machine either.
>
>Now my WIN98 status hasn't changed BUT the other machines can "see" the WIN98 machine (they show its 'name' and 'description')

This is the NetBeui protocol at work here, so this means that your machine is broadcasting correctly. I wouldn't think this was a cabling problem at this point.

>Can anyone suggest some course of action to resolve this??
>
>Thanks in advance,
>
>Jim N

Jim, you didn't say who manufactured the NIC. You also didn't mention if you used the manufacturers driver for the NIC or used the Windows98 driver. I know that 3Com suggests using their drivers instead of Windows because of some problems with their cards and windows. You also might want to swap out one of the NIC's from a different computer and try it in the WIN98 machine. I once had a Kingston card that upon first installation worked but then stopped. The weird thing on that card was that in some machines it would work and in others it would hang machines on boot-up. Good Luck and let us know the outcome.

Mark A. Struck