App for Browsing PC Files?

[kwissylawrencek]

Hi there,

I was wondering if there was a 3rd party app out there that allowed you to access, browse, copy/paste & alter files on a PC from mac reliably?

We can access the PC and it's files through the Network window in Finder and SMB, but it's incredibly unreliable. Browsing through deep file trees often closes the window and we get error-36 whenever we try to rename, alter or paste files onto the PC.

So that's why i was hoping for an app that could browse it reliably, possibly with a server on the PC side?

 

[iThinksimple]

access PC drive over network ?
check PC share setting, is the PC drive writable ?

 

[kwissylawrencek]

access PC drive over network ?
check PC share setting, is the PC drive writable ?

Yep, that's what we're doing at the moment through Ethernet, but it's extremely buggy. Some files will copy, some will only copy half of the file (making it corrupt) but most of the time not at all.

Also, no problems between the macs, just the PC. I'll keep searching.

 

[dakwar]

Yep, that's what we're doing at the moment through Ethernet, but it's extremely buggy. Some files will copy, some will only copy half of the file (making it corrupt) but most of the time not at all.

Also, no problems between the macs, just the PC. I'll keep searching.

How many Macs in your network?
How many PCs?

What OS and version are the Macs running?
What about the PCs?

Are all connections wired? Only some? Everything going through the same hub/router?

If you have multiple Macs and PCs, is there even a single Mac to PC connection that is stable?

 

[kwissylawrencek]

How many Macs in your network?
How many PCs?

What OS and version are the Macs running?
What about the PCs?

Are all connections wired? Only some? Everything going through the same hub/router?

If you have multiple Macs and PCs, is there even a single Mac to PC connection that is stable?

2 Macs (iMac, 10.7.5)(Macbook Pro, 10.5.9)
2 PCs (Laptop, W8)(Mac Pro w/ Boot Camp, W7)

The Mac Pro has a HDD in it that stores all the shared business files that the other computers access and save to. The HDD is shared with full access on the network. The laptop connects to it fine, both macs (iMac wired, Macbook wi-fi) throw up "error-36 files cannot be read or written" when copying, and an error when saving from mail but sometimes saves, sometimes not.

Hmm, I think I may know the problem. The HDD that I'm trying to access is formatted as Mac OS Extended from before we were Boot Camping. I've been using the Paragon software so windows can read/write it but maybe that's causing issues with sharing on the network...

I'm going to play around with a few things (formatting) and see if I can fix it.
Thanks for making me go through it all! I picked up some details I may have overlooked.

 

[kwissylawrencek]

Solved

Hey, just for anyone having a similar problem in the future and happens to stumble upon this thread, this is how I solved my specific problem.

The problem was although I could easily access/edit the Mac formatted internal HDD (not the mac boot drive) in Windows with Paragon HFS+, I couldn't access/edit it shared over the network from other computers. I was getting partial copies, some full copies but mostly error-32.

- So I booted back into Mac OS X
- Copied the contents of the HDD onto a folder on the desktop
- Opened Disk Utility, reformatted the HDD as FAT32
- Copied the contents back onto the newly reformatted HDD then boot back into Windows.

Now the HDD is accessible from both Windows and Mac without 3rd party drivers and I can access/edit the HDD over the network with no problems.

 

[Wolfpup]

Hey, just for anyone having a similar problem in the future and happens to stumble upon this thread, this is how I solved my specific problem.

The problem was although I could easily access/edit the Mac formatted internal HDD (not the mac boot drive) in Windows with Paragon HFS+, I couldn't access/edit it shared over the network from other computers. I was getting partial copies, some full copies but mostly error-32.

- So I booted back into Mac OS X
- Copied the contents of the HDD onto a folder on the desktop
- Opened Disk Utility, reformatted the HDD as FAT32
- Copied the contents back onto the newly reformatted HDD then boot back into Windows.

Now the HDD is accessible from both Windows and Mac without 3rd party drivers and I can access/edit the HDD over the network with no problems.

Regarding that, you might want to use exFAT instead of FAT32. It's a lot more modern and doesn't have all the limitations FAT32 does (since it was created back for Windows 95/98 when hard drives were a LOT smaller!)

Sounds like that software to read HFS+ though was causing the problem, so that's good to know!