First time using Ethernet external hard drive.

311

Hello ,
Got myself a western digital mybook external network drive ,to back up photos and stuff.
It came with software called mionet ,but it's crap so I've just being using it from the network folder.

My problem is that I had it working on my laptop (vista) ,then I went to a vista PC and backed up that ,then another XP pc.
Now whatever I do ,I can't get the drive to appear on my vista laptop. Is there anyway that settings I made on my two pc's may have interfered with my laptop settings.

If this problem needs me to read up on something ,I'll give it a go. It's been hard trying to find the answer on google because everyone is complaining about the drive I got ,it works fine but has no fan on it so It needs to be turned off every few days I wreckon.

Anyways thanks for reading ,finger crossed.

Overheal

is there a difference in vista editions between the laptop and pc? Eg. Vista Business/Premium and which XP Edition? Cross-Networking capabilities vary from combination to combination. Only Business and Professional editions can initiate remote desktop, for instance.

311

Thanks overheal ,last night when I turned off the pc's the friggin drive displayed on my laptop again.
Laptop is vista home premium ,PC Vista Home premiom ,PC XP SP2

I'm new to this type of stuff ,but I presumed the ethernet of the harddrive was shared at the router. The pc's had no problem sharing access.

It works for now ,but I will need to read up on network access because it's extremely handy.

Streaming from a drive without using space ,godsend:)
Any recommendations on run-throughs on this type of stuff?

ethernet

Often older versions of Samba are running on these NAS devices. Vista doesn't like how they authenticate. Try making this change to your registry.

311

Thanks ethernet ,I tried the sepcol.msc but it doesn't exist and after searching around for it ,seems that vista basic and home premium don't have the file.

Searching microsofts help site for the file leads me to a file called certmgr.msc
Only seems to list certificates ,obviously you know more about this than me.

ethernet

Happy to (try to) help :P

Pity about secpol. I had to do the same thing several months back. Can do it directly through regedit instead of launching secpol.

Back from Google. It seems there's no secpol in Vista Home Premium. You can apply this following the instruction on this site. Even if it's not the problem, at least it's one more thing to cross off the list.

311

ethernet wrote: »

Happy to (try to) help :P

this site. Even if it's not the problem, at least it's one more thing to cross off the list.

Fair play ,appreciate it:)

I'll go through the link ,thanks again.

311

Anyone any idea why the drive would intermittenly appear on each machine ?
It dissapears more often on my laptop vistaHP ,than on my two PC's VistaHP

ethernet

If the device has a web interface, make sure it's in the same workgroup (could be MSHOME or WORKGROUP depending on your version of Windows; just make sure it's consistent across all machines).

BTW, you are browsing from Network (Vista)/My Network Places (XP), yes? Sometimes the crappy software you get with these devices is the cause, i.e. you should not have to install anything to use a NAS device if it's a proper NAS device.

311

Last night by luck ,the machine with XP started failing altogether (bus loosing power & screen signal going)shortly after I had finished backing it up.

So I now I have three vista home premium machines working together ,I replaced the xp machine with a HTPC that I wasn't really using.

What you say about naming the networks makes a lot of sense ,thats more than likely what my problem is because the problem only happens when different machines are turned on.

Btw ,I changed the settings in registry from 3 to 0 as in the link you gave me ,I just left it at 0 anyways.

Thanks again for the help:)

311

Ethernet ,got everything sorted:)

House is in order ,thanks to renaming the computers.
Thanks very much.:)

Overheal

ohhhhh.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcqSfAHvuAo

interesting thread. good outcome.

311

Thanks overheal ,good job.

ethernet

Good stuff. Happy computing