Can a computer become an external drive?

[behemoth]

Well, denizens of MacRumors Forums, I have often browsed here to find an answer to a trickier tech support problem, and have always met with success, until now.
I am not even sure if what I want to do is possible, but if it isn't, it damn well should be.

I have, in addition to my G4 Powerbook, a woefully underused AMD PC, with both Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux installed on it.
I say woefully underused, and I mean it: this thing has 95% free hard drive space: over 100 gigs. Meanwhile, my PB has 5GB spare.
So my question is, is there any way in hell (ethernet, firewire, weird partioning, ssh, samba, vnc... anything) that I can get all that lovely free space to show up as an external hard drive on the Mac (bearing in mind that I would still like to have a working desktop at the end of it all)?

Its over to you now... please help me!

 

[mkrishnan]

Can't you just share a folder on that computer over the network? I don't think you need to do anything particularly special. Find the place you want the Mac to put its files, and right click that folder in Windows and adjust its sharing properties. Then open it from the Mac. I don't know the exact Ubuntu steps, but it is equally easy.

 

[revenuee]

you can set up Firewire IP --- and access the drives that way --- it's pretty zippy

 

[behemoth]

I have yet to get shared folders to work properly on either end. When I set them up, they work fine, but none of the settings are remembered on the windows PC. It may work better in ubuntu.
The Firewire method also sounds promising, and presumably faster (400mb/s to 100, right?). I guess I'll have to pick up an A-A cable and give it a go.
The reason why I would like it as an external drive is mainly personal preference, rather than anything else. Also, it seems that OS X is ready to have an external drive disappear, but if a shared folder goes (when the laptop leaves the house), getting it back isn't as simple as plugging back into the network.
Thanks for the stunningly swift replies though!

 

[revenuee]

The Firewire method also sounds promising, and presumably faster (400mb/s to 100, right?). I guess I'll have to pick up an A-A cable and give it a go.

yes it is faster -- firewire networking is the cost effective alternative to gigabit ethernet on LAN's since most modern computers have the IEEE 1394 built into them be it called Firewire or i.LINK so it's just a questions of getting long enough cables ... this configuration is built into OS 10.3 and up but you'll have to check with you're linux distro or XP if you can do it ... it's been a while since i've touched Linux since OS X's Unix core does everything i ever needed Linux for ... and XP --- well since i don't game, that platform has nothing OS X can't offer me ... and XP also can't offer me Final Cut Pro, or Motion.

but i digress ... but yes ... check it out with your OS's before you go get yourself a 6 pin to 6 pin firewire cord --- cause if XP or Linux can't do it then you might be stuck running file sharing via 100 Base/T

 

[zap2]

if your dont use ur PC you could take ur harddrive out and put it in an external case and use it with ur Mac

 

[mduser63]

I've done networking over FireWire with between a Mac and PC before with XP on the PC. XP does have support for TCP/IP over FireWire.