Find IP from netbios name

Hello all. I’ve been looking for a way to determine the IP address for a computer when all I have is the name that would be used to access the computer in windows (eg \\servername in IE). In the past I have been able to just ping the computers to determine the IP address, but that for some reason no longer works. The computers I am trying to access belong to some of my friends on a college network, so I can’t change any settings on the server, just looking for a workaround to find the IP addresses without needing to call them and ask.
Thanks.

you'll probably find that your friend's Linux PC have set ping to be disabled within their firewall setup.

Why, pray tell, do you need their IP addresses?

have fun

Nerderello

We've been working on projects, and need to be able to access the common samba shares to get to the files. Thought about using a CVS repository, but it isn't really needed-we just put notes in the share directory and grab what updated files we need. It isn’t just the boxes I am trying to access; all the computers on the campus can no longer be identified by NetBIOS name.
Thanks for the reply though.

my networking is a little old, but I think that NetBIOS uses IPX protocol and not TCP/IP protocol. So perhaps that may be part of the problem.

Is there no DNS (Domain Name Server) on your network?

Nerderello