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Accessing an External Hard Drive connected to my Mini

I

infinity4ever

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 21, 2006
29
0
San Diego, CA
I recently bought a Mac Mini and a Lacie 250 gb harddrive that connects via a firewire. I want to be able to access the external harddrive from my PC, but I haven't been able to figure out how. I can see my Mini from my PC and I can see my PC on my Mini. I am new to MAC, so I appoligize if I use the wrong terminology.

My thought was that I could put my iTunes library and my photos on the external harddrive and have access to these from both computers.

Any suggestions or help will be greatly appreciated :)

Thanks!
 
How is the drive formatted? You need to have it as a MS-DOS in disk utility for both computers to read it. Otherwise if it is journaled then windows will just ask you if you want to format it.
 
excalibur313 said:
How is the drive formatted? You need to have it as a MS-DOS in disk utility for both computers to read it. Otherwise if it is journaled then windows will just ask you if you want to format it.
Click to expand...
I think this is only needed if you want to actually plug the disk into a pc, but not if you want to read it over the network. The Mac will act as a file server if connected over the network, and will do the format translation.

Do you have both Personal File Sharing and Windows Sharing checked in System Preferences/Sharing? I think that is all that should be needed to see the files from your pc.
 
danny_w said:
I think this is only needed if you want to actually plug the disk into a pc, but not if you want to read it over the network. The Mac will act as a file server if connected over the network, and will do the format translation.

Do you have both Personal File Sharing and Windows Sharing checked in System Preferences/Sharing? I think that is all that should be needed to see the files from your pc.
Click to expand...

Yes, I have both the Personal File Sharing and Windows sharing checked. The only thing I did with the hard drive is connect it to the mac mini. Then I copied my iTunes from my PC and my photos directly from the PC as I can see the shared files. I just can't see this drive from my PC :(
 
1. On your PC, what version of Windows are you running? If XP, try the following:

-Start > My Network Places

-Look at the left column. Look for a link that says View Workgroup Computers

-Assuming you are using the default group, MSHOME, click that and it might take a few minutes.

-If everything is working properly, you should see your Mac in addition to any other computers on your network.

-Click your Mac, and then it should ask for a user/pass, enter those, and if permissions are set properly, you should be presented with a listing of files and folders.

-Find the Volumes folder, open it, and you should see your firewire drive listed. Right-click on that, and hover over Send To...> then select "Send to Desktop (create shortcut)"

Hope this works!
 
baummer said:
-Click your Mac, and then it should ask for a user/pass, enter those, and if permissions are set properly, you should be presented with a listing of files and folders.

-Find the Volumes folder, open it, and you should see your firewire drive listed. Right-click on that, and hover over Send To...> then select "Send to Desktop (create shortcut)"

Hope this works!
Click to expand...


I don't have a volumes folder. I looked through all the folders but I don't see one named volumes :(
 
infinity4ever said:
I don't have a volumes folder. I looked through all the folders but I don't see one named volumes :(
Click to expand...


Can you post a screengrab? (Press Prt Scrn, open Paint from Start > Accessories, and then save and upload somewhere and post the img here). Chances are you may be within your user account's directory. Have you tried navigating higher at all?
 
infinity4ever said:
I get 2 icons melodierush and Printers and faxes.
Click to expand...

Alright, try this instead:

1. Start > Run

2. Type: \\nameofyourmini\

3. You should be prompted for a password, and this should list the root directory.

Let me know what this does.
 
I tried it and got the same thing as before. It does ask me for a user name and I put in mine, so I think it is taking me to the same level. Is there a way to log on the mini without logging on as a user? Or do I need to set up a different account to log on?

Thanks for all your help!
 
If you want to share anything other than your home folder, the easiest way is to use SharePoints to share your External HDD.

PS. you will have much better luck after this mapping a drive on your Windows machine to \\ipaddress\sharename rather than using the machine name

For example, map \\192.168.1.100\external where external is the share name you chose in SharePoints
 
infinity4ever said:
I tried it and got the same thing as before. It does ask me for a user name and I put in mine, so I think it is taking me to the same level. Is there a way to log on the mini without logging on as a user? Or do I need to set up a different account to log on?

Thanks for all your help!
Click to expand...

There's a step I'm forgetting here, but for the life of me I can't recall what it is. Perhaps try:

1. Start > Run

2. Type: \\mini\Volumes\

And see if that does anything. Also, make sure the account you're using as admin access.
 
baummer said:
There's a step I'm forgetting here, but for the life of me I can't recall what it is. Perhaps try:

1. Start > Run

2. Type: \\mini\Volumes\

And see if that does anything. Also, make sure the account you're using as admin access.
Click to expand...

Don't mislead the guy...you won't be able to see the Volumes folder unless you configure your mac to share that folder which is accomplished by either hacking the smb.conf file or using SharePoints.
 
kingjr3 said:
Don't mislead the guy...you won't be able to see the Volumes folder unless you configure your mac to share that folder which is accomplished by either hacking the smb.conf file or using SharePoints.
Click to expand...

I never had to do that and was able to access mine just fine...for instance, open an SSH connection to your mac, and once you login with your user and passwd:

type: cd /
press enter
type: ls
press enter

I bet you'll see your Volumes folder.
 
baummer said:
I never had to do that and was able to access mine just fine...for instance, open an SSH connection to your mac, and once you login with your user and passwd:

type: cd /
press enter
type: ls
press enter

I bet you'll see your Volumes folder.
Click to expand...

SSH is different than SMB...SFTP is different than SMB....SCP is different than SMB - all three of these protocols will allow you to browse your entire machine. But when you mount a drive in Windows or Browse your network you aren't using any of these protocols.
 
kingjr3 said:
SSH is different than SMB...SFTP is different than SMB....SCP is different than SMB - all three of these protocols will allow you to browse your entire machine. But when you mount a drive in Windows or Browse your network you aren't using any of these protocols.
Click to expand...

Yes, thank you, I understand the differences between the protocols. However, my point was that I CAN access the Volumes folder from my PC, and I did not do any special hacking other than what was needed to be able to access both machines from each other, respectively.
 
baummer said:
Yes, thank you, I understand the differences between the protocols. However, my point was that I CAN access the Volumes folder from my PC, and I did not do any special hacking other than what was needed to be able to access both machines from each other, respectively.
Click to expand...

Ok, well thats not the default behavior. When you setup Windows sharing , ONLY your home folder is shared, unless you config it otherwise which is why SharePoints exists since most people don't like to muck around with config files.
 
kingjr3 said:
Ok, well thats not the default behavior. When you setup Windows sharing , ONLY your home folder is shared, unless you config it otherwise which is why SharePoints exists since most people don't like to muck around with config files.
Click to expand...

Ahh...I followed this guide when I first got my mac and was a total newbie, perhaps this changed the default behavior: http://guides.macrumors.com/Networking_Windows_with_Mac_OS_X
 
kingjr3 said:
See post #13
Click to expand...

Thanks! I got a little overwhelmed with all the info! I downloaded it and it worked! Thanks, I can now see my drive. Is there any gotchas I should be aware of? Mostly I just want access to my iTunes and photos :)
 
ok, one follow-up questions, somewhat related. I would like for iPhotos to automatically put my photos on my external harddrive. How do I change the default location? I know this must be fairly easy to do, but I haven't found a way.

Thanks!
 
infinity4ever said:
ok, one follow-up questions, somewhat related. I would like for iPhotos to automatically put my photos on my external harddrive. How do I change the default location? I know this must be fairly easy to do, but I haven't found a way.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

You will need to create a symlink to point at your iPhoto Library on the external.

First, move ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library to your external hard drive.

Second, rename (or move) the iPhoto Library folder in your home folder to something/someplace else, don't delete it quite yet.

Third create a symlink using Terminal

ln -s /Volumes/External/iPhoto\ Library ~/Pictures/iPhoto\ Library

where External is the name of your External drive as mounted in the filesystem

Once you confirm everything is working feel free to delete the original Library Folder.
 
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