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- This topic has 2 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 2 months ago by VvWolverinevV.
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January 24, 2008 at 6:45 am #28199RustyMember
I bought a Western Digital Passport drive for cheap for my music and various files.
I have it plugged into a computer that is plugged into my wireless router (via Ethernet) its a Belkin N1.
My problem is I want to map it as a network drive on my laptop that runs on wireless.
How can I do this I’m computer savvy but I just really can’t network them for some reason and both are running XP Professional.
January 26, 2008 at 4:15 am #166289VvWolverinevVParticipantNetworking can be tricky because there are so many places for the connection to get tied up. The simplest instructions go something like:
1) Connect the external drive and make sure it mounts as a drive in Windows on your desktop PC.
2) Set the drive up as a shared folder. (You may have to alternatively share all of the folders on the drive separately; I seem to remember Windows not letting you share a root directory.)
3) Make sure your firewall (on both computers) allows connections to your local area network on ports 137-139 and 445.
4) Make sure both computers are in the same workgroup.If you do all of these correctly, you should be able to browse to your desktop PC in “View Computers in My Workgroup.” When you open the desktop PC icon, you should see the folders you’re sharing from the external drive. If you need more details on any of the above steps, post back. Good luck 🙂
February 5, 2008 at 4:11 am #166288FanaticMemberOne other thing to test. Can you share drives between PCs on your network? That would be the first thing I’d test. If you can’t do that, you won’t be able to share the external drive, either.
I’ve had problems sharing drives across TCPIP, but enabling the IPX/SPX protocol (in addition to tcpip of course) made it work. Some people will cringe at the thought, but hey, if it works, why not?
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