I can't connect to the default web site in IIS 6.0 using localhost or 127.0.0.1 or by server name. When I telnet to port 80 with one of these names, there's no connection.
However other web sites are running and I can telnet using any of the ip addresses. I can ping to localhost where 127.0.0.1 is responding. The default web site is running. It's not stopped.
check the windows firewall, that has a habit of blocking IIS on a local machine
Is the default site bound to a specific IP address? By default it would display "all unassigned" for the IP, but if you've linked all sites to a specific IP address, then the local IP would no longer be configured on the server and would not answer.
Stop all the sites under IIS, restart IIS and start the one you're interested in.
If this fails delete all the sites under IIS and create from scratch. If this fails, the problem is not with IIS and you'll need to look at what other services are running and start turning them off.
The server has several ip addresses and I have web sites linked to some of them.
When the default site had "all unassigned", I couldn't connect, When I changed it to an ip address from the list which is not used by any site, I have the same problem.
A firewall may prevent some content of your website/website itself from being accessible, so if you have problems with accessing content then check that your firewall is not rejecting content form your site/ur website.
The easiest way to ensure that your firewall is not blocking your access to ur site services is to use your firewall control panel to allow data from *.(your site url)