share new hard drive across home network

[rich47]

I have a home network that works fine. I added a second hard drive to
one of the computers and right clicked on the new drive to allow file
sharing. The new drive does not appear on the network when I check
for it from other computers on the home network. What do I do to make
this work? Also, once I get the drive recognized, do I need to share
each folder individually, or can I share all folders with a single
click? Thanks.

 

[Anteaus]

First you need to see if the computer itself is visible on the network. Try
pinging its IP address from another computer. Then ping it by name. If this
doesn't work, file sharing won't.

Then, I would try connecting to the share with a commandline instructon:

net use H: \\computer\share

(Change H: to a suitable drive letter)

You can also try this with the IP address in place of the computer's name.

As for sharing folders, it's a top-down process so if you share a toplevel
folder then all of those under it are also shared. For this reason it's best
not to share the driveletter itself, since that means you then cannot have
ANY private folders on that drive. Instead, share a first-level folder.

BTW, you can (re)share subfolders of an existing share, and in that case the
rights of the user depend on the 'route of entry' into the folder. But there
is normally no need to do this.

A further complicating factor is that on NTFS partitions, filesystem rights
apply as well as share rights, and these may prevent access even when the
user has been given access to the share. This is less likely on a second
drive, though, it tends to arise in personal "My Documents" folders and the
like, on the system drive.

 

[Chuck [MVP]]

I have a home network that works fine. I added a second hard drive to
one of the computers and right clicked on the new drive to allow file
sharing. The new drive does not appear on the network when I check
for it from other computers on the home network. What do I do to make
this work? Also, once I get the drive recognized, do I need to share
each folder individually, or can I share all folders with a single
click? Thanks.

Rich,

Do you not see the new hard drive (but you do see the rest of that computer)?
Or do you not see the computer itself?

Visibility problems are generally caused by personal firewalls, or the NetBT
setting.
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2006/07/advanced-windows-networking-using.html>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2006/07/advanced-windows-networking-using.html

You might look at logs from "browstat status", "ipconfig /all", "net config
server", and "net config workstation", from the server computer, and a couple
others, and compare. Read this article, and linked articles, and follow
instructions precisely (download browstat!):
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/troubleshooting-network-neighborhood.html#AskingForHelp>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/troubleshooting-network-neighborhood.html#AskingForHelp

You can create a single share, from the parent folder, which will include all
sub folders, if you wish. Just make sure that you want everybody to have access
to all sub folders. That's why you organise folders carefully.

--
Cheers,
Chuck, MS-MVP 2005-2007 [Windows - Networking]
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/
Paranoia is not a problem, when it's a normal response from experience.
My email is AT DOT
actual address pchuck mvps org.