I have an external drive connected to my mac. It will not connect to my PC using USB because it is Mac OS extended formatted. So I was wondering how I can share it over a network as it is connected to my Mac so I can access it on my PC. I tried using Windows sharing but when I log onto the computer I cannot see the drive. Thanks.
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Sharing external hard drive over network for a PC
- Thread starter kujo111
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ok im not 100% sure if this method will work, but ill try (dont remember if it works haha)..
1. plug in the external HD, make sure it mounts etc.
2. right click on the HD, choose "Get Info"
3. tick the "shared folder" option.
4. open system preferences>sharing
4.5. write down the exact name of your external hard drive.
5. tick "file sharing" then hit the "Options" button towards the bottom right of the window. tick "Share files and folders using SMB" and make sure that an account is ticked in the list below.
6. go to the networking tab and select your interface (either airport, or ethernet).
7. click on the interface that you use for internet etc and under the "Status: Connected" part it will list your IP address. write down/remember this address.
8. go to your windoze computer and open my computer.
9. hit the "tools" menu and choose "map network drive".
10. type \\192.168.0.0\exact name of your hard drive including spaces
where i have put 192.168.0.0: insert YOUR IP.
11. hit finish and see if that works...!!! if it doesnt try going \\192.168.0.0 (change to your IP) and see how you go from there.
1. plug in the external HD, make sure it mounts etc.
2. right click on the HD, choose "Get Info"
3. tick the "shared folder" option.
4. open system preferences>sharing
4.5. write down the exact name of your external hard drive.
5. tick "file sharing" then hit the "Options" button towards the bottom right of the window. tick "Share files and folders using SMB" and make sure that an account is ticked in the list below.
6. go to the networking tab and select your interface (either airport, or ethernet).
7. click on the interface that you use for internet etc and under the "Status: Connected" part it will list your IP address. write down/remember this address.
8. go to your windoze computer and open my computer.
9. hit the "tools" menu and choose "map network drive".
10. type \\192.168.0.0\exact name of your hard drive including spaces
where i have put 192.168.0.0: insert YOUR IP.
11. hit finish and see if that works...!!! if it doesnt try going \\192.168.0.0 (change to your IP) and see how you go from there.
It was my understanding that HFS+ (Extended Journal) was unreadable by Windows. I've been reading a lot about it because I want to use an external HDD with my time machine backups and as storage accessible to bootcamped Windows/Leopard.
The main file structure that can be used by both is FAT32. If you reformat the hard drive with that, it would be viewable by your mac and pc. Kind of a bad solution if you already have a lot of data though.
I'm probably going to end up getting a 1TB HD with half partitioned to extended journaled for TM, and the other half FAT so I can use it to store files and such. Good luck!
UPDATE: There are 3rd party drivers out there that let you view HFS on Windows or NTFS on OSX. Google it and see!
The main file structure that can be used by both is FAT32. If you reformat the hard drive with that, it would be viewable by your mac and pc. Kind of a bad solution if you already have a lot of data though.
I'm probably going to end up getting a 1TB HD with half partitioned to extended journaled for TM, and the other half FAT so I can use it to store files and such. Good luck!
UPDATE: There are 3rd party drivers out there that let you view HFS on Windows or NTFS on OSX. Google it and see!
1. that true HFS+ cannot be read by windoze DIRECTLY! however if you share the drive from a mac it can be forced to use the SMB protorol which is a fiel sharing protocol that can be read by windoze computers... so problem solved there.
2. worst format in the world i wouldnt even try.
3. naaaah just get MacDrive or a similar (google has a free version of it). your PC can read all mac partitions, so leave it as that. other PC's wont be able to read it, which is see as a +)
it shouldnt need any software at all! macs can read NTFS perfectly, even if it were via USB, just cant write.
donno why so many people are having issues here..
I think there's some misunderstanding of the problem. I've got an external HD hooked up to my mac mini via firewire, and that works great. What I want to do is be able to share that external drive with PCs on my network. If I enable "Windows Sharing" I can see my mac HD, but how do I share my external drive? Again, using Tiger. Thanks!
have you tried mapping to the drive by going
\\192.168.0.0\drivename (replace with your IP, replace with your drive name)
e.g. i go like this.
\\10.0.0.7\T2
because my MBP's IP = 10.0.0.7 and firewire drive name = T2.
Interesting, that hasn't worked for me, but maybe I don't have the right name. To see my mac's HD, I use \\my-computer-name.local\myusername, which works great. I've tried \\my-computer-name.local\LaCie, or lacie, or myusername\lacie, none of it works. I'm assuming the drive name is LaCie since that's what shows below the icon, and that's what I see in the Name field when I do "Get Info". Then again, my mac HD says its name is "Macintosh HD", which I don't use to access it, so maybe that's not the right method.
Got ideas? Thanks for the help! I'm new to mac.
Got ideas? Thanks for the help! I'm new to mac.
is the account your using an Administrator account? if not, by default, you aren't allowed to view shared disks using a normal account.
you can check that by going into system prefs>accounts. if should say under your user name on the left list menu.
i just have to go to the shops i will fire up my tiger server and try share an external FW drive for you and post my result!!
ok i couldnt get tiger to share the hard drive, its a Server version and i am unaware how to share HFS+ volumes using SMB, ill need try to find someone with tiger to test it out!
i just tested this with my Time Machine drive and it works fine. but the feature of sharing a folder or a whole hard drive is only in Leopard. Tiger only shares the Public folder. you have to install Sharepoints to share other directories in Tiger.
needs to have "Allow guests to connect to shared folders" checked in Account preferences under Guest Account otherwise a user name and password is needed when trying to map the network drive and im not sure what this is (tried my Mac's user name and password).
ensure you are using the Administrator username & password for your computer, it needs the proper credentials. if your using the admin pswds then im clueless
