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Forum Discussion
JJ15
Oct 16, 2018Aspirant
Nighthawk 7800 | Share usb drive on network
Router / Netgear Nighthawk X4S R7800
USB Drive / Seagate Expansion portable 1TB
Yesterday i attached the seagate usb drive to the router and i wish to share it to all devices on the network, especially to my pc as a media server and for extra storage for photos etc.
The netgear app recognises the harddrive and in windows10 i can also find it under network. But it doesnt really work, i cannot add files or delete files from my windows pc and when i try to play a movie stored on the usb drive it starts downloading it to my local harddrive.
I would like to know how i can make it work better. What i had in mind is that the drive would work the same way as lets say Google drive. I will just see a new drive in the file explorer, can click it, add files, delete files, use it as a plex server etc. So actually i wish my computer would just treat it like it was an internal drive like any other.
Any help will be muchly appreciated!
Hello,
The behavior you describe is at normal state. On the Network section of the Windows Explorer you see the shared folder as a media server.
You have to attach the drive as a shared one : https://kb.netgear.com/24063/How-do-I-map-the-USB-device-attached-to-my-Nighthawk-router-to-a-Windows-network-drive
2 Replies
- bingo19Apprentice
Hello,
The behavior you describe is at normal state. On the Network section of the Windows Explorer you see the shared folder as a media server.
You have to attach the drive as a shared one : https://kb.netgear.com/24063/How-do-I-map-the-USB-device-attached-to-my-Nighthawk-router-to-a-Windows-network-drive
- IrvSpMaster
The 'solution' you got is possibly wrong. See my screen capture on the right.
It is normal to the Media Server, but you should also see the READYSHARE (default name) as well. That is what you use to access the USB drive.
From a CMD prompt in W10 run NET VIEW:
==========
C:\>net view
Server Name Remark
-----------------------------------------
\\IRV8700 Irv's 8700
\\READYSHARE readyshare
The command completed successfully.-----------------------------------------
Then you can use NET VIEW \\READYSHARE (or the name for the share you used) to see what is on the drive:
--------------------
C:\>net view \\readyshare
Shared resources at \\readyshare
readyshare
Share name Type Used as Comment
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Movies Disk read:all-no password;write:all-no password
USB_2.0_Storage Disk read:admin;write:admin
The command completed successfully.------------------------------------
You can access the shares and see what is on them using DIR:
-----------------------
C:\>dir \\readyshare\usb_2.0_storage
Volume in drive \\readyshare\usb_2.0_storage is USB_2.0_Storage
Volume Serial Number is 6F06-9E72
Directory of \\readyshare\usb_2.0_storage
03/16/2018 02:25 PM <DIR> $RECYCLE.BIN
10/09/2018 10:47 AM <DIR> .
01/01/2015 01:00 AM <DIR> ..
12/25/2017 12:10 PM <DIR> Acronis Backup
11/10/2016 08:23 AM 5,453,003 ATI2016_userguide_en-US.pdf
08/16/2016 05:14 PM 50,449,456 dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe
05/12/2018 01:39 PM <DIR> netgear_downloader
09/13/2018 02:55 PM 48 New Text Document.txt
06/13/2018 07:59 PM <DIR> Pictures
05/26/2018 07:28 PM 19 qc
03/05/2012 06:44 PM 1,644,118 SeagateExpansion.ico
01/13/2016 10:00 PM 611,096 seatools-for-windows-en-us.pdf
05/12/2018 11:25 AM <DIR> share
05/12/2018 01:37 PM <DIR> System Volume Information
01/14/2016 11:47 AM <DIR> VProRecovery
6 File(s) 58,157,740 bytes
9 Dir(s) 1,208,285,044,736 bytes free----------------------
However, under Win10, it might not work normally unless you enable SMB1. No need to do a NET USE to attach the drive. Matter of fact you might have problems using NET USE even.