when you do a ps -ef | grep -i smb do you see the smbd running?yes. it should start at boot time.I get 3 lines. something like root 732 1 0 sep17? 00:00:00:00 smb -dmy e-mail doesn't work on the debian machine. So I can't cut and paste the lines to send. If the above doesn't give you enough info, I will write them down and send them to you.