Thread: Am I being oblivious??

I am trying to connect external hard drives to my home network. The "problem" I am having is that the hard drive shows up as a Window Media Device/Server and not as a file device. When I click on the device, I get Windows Media and not a Windows Explorer for files that I want.

Goal is to stream to my Touch and use the hard drive(s) as a network storage.

I get the same problem connecting directly to my router (Asus AC66R) or using a Cirago NAS appliance. Some direction is greatly appreciated.

Chris

Originally Posted by brightonjel

Depending on how your Windows is set up, tou may need to explicitly map a network drive in order to make your file store visible for browsing by Explorer.

Further to these comments you will likely need to use UNC to map the drive(s) to the main music folder - something like \\server\music

See more on UNC @ UNC Path Names in Windows - Universal Naming Convention

Originally Posted by ljohnson108

Further to these comments you will likely need to use UNC to map the drive(s) to the main music folder - something like \\server\music

See more on UNC @ UNC Path Names in Windows - Universal Naming Convention

Thank you brightonjel and ljohnson. I know about mapping the drive but if I cannot see it as a file folder, i did not want to start Win Media all the time. I will check the link out.

On a further note, I have the drive connected to a USB port on the router. I see the drive fine on my laptop (wireless) and it shows as any other drive/folder. Its only on the desktop which is hardwired to the router that seems to see only a media folder.

Laptop is Win8 Pro (Dell Precision) and the desktop is Win7 Pro (Alienware Aurora R1).