two computers sharing external Hard Drives

[4now]

I have a G5 with 3 lacie external drives attached

I also need to access these external drives from a white iMac

both are using Leopard

I have file sharing on for both computers.
on the G5 I added one of the externals to the 'shared folder' list & added the user of the iMac-
but this doesn't work (iMac does not see the external)
I can add individual folders that are on the external, but I don't want to do this as they will keep changing

any advice would be appreciated

 

[rippyz]

I'm not using Leopard yet, but on Tiger, I just select "Connect to Server..." in the Finder, type in the IP address of the Mac with the external HD you want to connect to, and it will give me a list of volumes that's connected to that machine.

Another method (I read it somewhere) is to put an alias of the volume in the Public folder. I've never tried it so I don't know if it would work.

 

[DoFoT9]

OP,

first of all, enable file sharing on the computer you are trying to share the external hard drives. (located in system preferences)

you need to 'connect' to the hard drives, this can be done by going to any folder and looking on the left hand side. hopefully you will see your G5's computer, click on that and hit the "connect as" button towards the top right of the window. enter the G5's computer ADMINISTRATOR password and user name.

when it is authenticated it will bring up all of the folders/external hard drives/ other shared folders that the G5 has access to.

you should then be set...

 

[4now]

connect as administrator reveals the external hard drives

thanks so much

 

[DoFoT9]

connect as administrator reveals the external hard drives

thanks so much

thats ok 🙂

 

[4now]

skill testing question:

Is there a reason why

1 out of 4 externals attached to G5 does not show up when the iMac connects ??

all 4 externals shows up in the Shared list on the G5

 

[DoFoT9]

skill testing question:

Is there a reason why

1 out of 4 externals attached to G5 does not show up when the iMac connects ??

all 4 externals shows up in the Shared list on the G5

id have to be there to definitely know, but go to "get info" on the hard drive that isnt working and down the very bottom should be a tick box "ignore ownership on this volume". that may work, but its probably not that. make sure that its a "shared folder" in the general part of the Get Info panel, however it doesnt necessarily need to be shared to be seen by other computers.

 

[4now]

so I've just discovered the illusive harddrive is the only external that is formatted in MS-DOS(FAT 32) not Mac OS Extended journaled - like the others.

I wonder if this is the reason

also a box for changing the permissions does not appear under 'sharing and permission' in the info for this drive. It only says 'you can read & write'

also no 'more info' is displayed (just shows dashes -- )

 

[ChrisA]

so I've just discovered the illusive harddrive is the only external that is formatted in MS-DOS(FAT 32) not Mac OS Extended journaled - like the others.

I wonder if this is the reason

also a box for changing the permissions does not appear under 'sharing and permission' in the info for this drive. It only says 'you can read & write'

also no 'more info' is displayed (just shows dashes -- )

The MS-DOS (FAT) is an indirect cause. That's because FAT filesystems do not have the concept of users or ownership or permissions so none of that can be wrong.

The best thing to do is to share folders not drives. Make a folder on the drive and call it "exports", "shared stuff" or whatever then place all the folders you want to share between the computers in there.

Your shared folder has to be readable and writable by the user on the other compter. Unless you understand or want to read up on how user IDs and groups work the only way is to have it read/writeable by "everyone" like FAT formatted disks are.

If you have a firewall/router it is relativiley safe to share a folder with "everyone" but I hate to do that do that because I have kids and the kids have freinds and I don't want them all to have to the abillty to mess with my files. So I lock it down a bit tighter than that.

 

[4now]

Your shared folder has to be readable and writable by the user on the other compter. Unless you understand or want to read up on how user IDs and groups work the only way is to have it read/writeable by "everyone" like FAT formatted disks are.

thanks but for some reason that didn't work.

I think the disk needs to be reformatted

there's really no reason for it to be FAT