Computer help forum: How to share a USB external hard drive on a home network

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, "security" tab is set for everyone full control and the Share permisssion is also set properly. As I said, I don't have problem sharing a FireWire External HDD, only USB one. Really don't understand why...

I have had somewhat similar experience. My home network has four computers (WinXP-pro, WinXP-pro, WinXP-home, Win98 ) linked together. The two USB hard-drives (one on USB 1.0 port and one on a USB 2.0 port) connected to the WinXP-home machine can no longer be seen by other computers on the network. As in your case, when I look at "My Network Places," the WinXP-home's USB HDD's are listed, but access is denied.

Any of the machines can access any of the shared files on the WinXP-home's C:\ drive, so the network is working. Furthermore, if the WinXP-home's external USB HDD is physically moved and connected to a USB port on one of the WinXP-pro machines, it can be viewed by other machines on the network, so the problem is not with the specific HDD. Of course, the files on the external USB HDD can be accessed directly from the WinXP-home machine through the "My Computer" panel, so the HDD is working properly. And finally, the problem does not appear to be drive letter related as the problem is encountered on both the HDD manually assigned drive letter "U" as well as the UDD with automatically assigned drive letter "E".

In the first paragraph above, I say the external USB connected HDD can no longer be seen by other machines on the network. Up until about two months ago, I used to be able to read and write to those HDD. I'm uncertain as to what has changed, but I've diligently sought to make sure all sharing parameters are correctly set.

In the past, I've suspected my Norton Antivirus software, but I'm running Norton on all of my machines. Also, the problem persists even when I temporarily turn on Norton Antivirus and worm protection. Thus, I've concluded that the problem is something associated with an interaction between WinXP-home and either an Norton Update or a Windows Update.

Moving the HDD to another computer would mean that I'd need to have that second machine turned on when ever I wished to address the external USB hard drive from the WinXP-home machine. The idea suggested in another reply of buying a device that would allow direct connection of the USB HDD to the network is an interesting option and will be investigated.

Finally... All WinXP OPsys have been updated with SR-2 and later updates.

Any suggestions as to how to solve this problem will be appreciated.

I just purchased Network Magic just for fun because it was on sale at Worldstart.com for $12. and it is really neat.

Shows all folders that are shared by putting an open hand under the drive or folder.

Hey, $12. is under the tip I leave in a good restaurant these days..

I downloaded Network Magic trial and installed it on 2 pc, I can set the folder to share from 1 pc and the other pc will see the Network Magic share folder but cannot access (same as using window share) it, I try to use the help from Network Magic but it did not solve the problem (firewall setting etc)

Hi all,
I faced the same problem and solved the problem by googling around and after I this page:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;177078

Follow the below instruction and restart computer.

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. Type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
4. In the right pane, double-click the IRPStackSize value.
NOTE: If the IRPStackSize value does not already exist, use the following procedure to create it:
a) In the Parameters folder of the registry, right-click the right pane.
b) Point to New, and then click DWord Value.
c) Type IRPStackSize.

IMPORTANT: Type "IRPStackSize" exactly as it is displayed because the value name is case-sensitive.
5. Change the Base to decimal.
6. In the Value Data box, type a value that is larger than the value that is listed.

If you created the IRPStackSize value using the procedure described in step 4, the default value is 15. It is recommended that you increase the value by 3. Therefore, if the previous value was 11, type 14, and then click OK.
7. Close the Registry Editor.
8. Restart the computer.

Actually for me the solution worked only after changed the decimal value to 21.
good luck guys.

I am glad it helped.

I registerd myself just to express my thanks to you.I had exactly the same problem then I followed your steps including creating the "IRPStackSize" variable (I used value 18) and it has worked since computer restart.

Great help. Thanks once again.

The clue is the message and the fact the memory sticks work. Here's why.

1. USB memory sticks are often supplied in FAT format. This means no pesky hard to grasp USER accounts to deal with.

2. Bigger drives would have NTFS along with all the permission issues to solve. The message was your clue.
Bob

Hello Folk

I followed the registry edit and after re-booting I re-shared the drives in question. They all worked fine and were available for read/write across the network.

All my drives are NTFS and I'm running 7 computers with a mixture of Win XP, Win 7 and Ubuntu.

Regards

Igevo

serendipitee,

thank you very much for helping me solve my problem

best,
cg

Thank you very much for this invaluable piece of information. Like some of my predecessors,I registered just to let you know it worked like a charm for me too.
Had almost given up trying.

You might have another problem. It might be correctly set/fixed by the wizard in a program like SharePlugger. This program is actually for automatically sharing USB drives (so you don't have to do it by hand all the time). Could work.

I had this exact problem sharing a partition on a 1TB USB hdd on Windows 7. I followed these instructions to the letter (21 worked for me, FYI), and presto, working share. I did not need to change anything on the computer that is not physically connected to the drive.

Thanks very much!

I registerd just to express my thanks. I know this thread is old, but this problem has been driving me crazy for sometime on my XP pro thank you!