Seagate GoFlex USB & NV - No Windows Network Browsing

Wow I can't imagine what the USB drive could possibly mean to "network browsing". I have the very same drive as you, but an NV+, and my Master Browser is another el-cheapo NAS though apparently yours is your ReadyNAS NV?

I recently had my GoFlex connected to my NV+ for the fully FOUR DAYS that it took to do a full backup (!!! see my recent thread here), and my network continued to work normally AFAIK. Same deal btw, a USB3.0 drive connected to the NV+ USB 2.0 port.

Me too. What I do know is disconnecting that drive solved the problem.

I've heard of Master Browser, but not sure what that means exactly.

In addition to the NV there is a ReadyNAS Ultra 4 Plus and NV+ (from successive backup upgrades) on the same network.

I'm not a networking expert, but apparently in a Windows network one of the computers keeps track of all the devices thereon such that when you go to "My Network" you can see all that are available. If you turn-off the computer serving as this "Master Browser", there is an "election" that takes place among the remaining PCs and one gets elected to play this role again. I have the Computer Browser service turned-off on all my Windows PCs, and a non-Netgear NAS that's on 24/7 serves this function.

I have no clue how your NV could serve to mess-up the election process, but here for fun is a Visual Basic script that you can run to see what is serving as Master Browser on your network. Note I had to fiddle with the line which says ThePattern4 =... to get my workgroup (HOME) to read properly:

Dim WshShell, FileSystem, RegularExpression, PFound1, Dummy, TheNVFile, TheLine, ThePattern1, ThePattern2 
Dim Flag, SysName, NBTable, ThePattern3, PFound2, ThePattern4, WrkGrp, TheText, ThePattern, Match 
Dim Matches, TheMatch, NBCommand, TheNBTFile
Const ForReading = 1
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set FileSystem = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set RegularExpression = New RegExp
Dummy = WshShell.Popup ( "Finding Master Browser. Please Wait...",1,"Find Master Browser Utility",64)
WshShell.Run "Cmd.exe /c Net View > C:\NetViewList.txt", 2,True
Set TheNVFile = FileSystem.OpenTextFile("C:\NetViewList.txt", ForReading, True)
Do While TheNVFile.AtEndOfStream <> True
  TheLine = TheNVFile.ReadLine
  ThePattern1 = "\\"
  PFound1 = FindPattern(TheLine, ThePattern1)
  If PFound1 Then
    ThePattern2 = "\\\\\w*"
    Flag = "1"
    SysName = GetPattern(TheLine, ThePattern2, Flag)
    NBTable = GetNBTable(SysName)
    ThePattern3 = "MSBROWSE"
    PFound2 = FindPattern(NBTable, ThePattern3)
    If PFound2 Then
      ThePattern4 = "\w* \w*          <1E>"
      Flag = "2"
      WrkGrp = GetPattern(NBTable, ThePattern4, Flag)
      Exit Do
    End If
  End If
Loop
If PFound2 Then
  Dummy = MsgBox("The computer acting as the Master Browser" & vbCrLf &_
  " for the workgroup " & WrkGrp & vbCrLf &_
  " is " & SysName, 4160, "Find Master Browser Utility")
Else
  Dummy = MsgBox("No Master Browser found at this time. " & vbCrLf &_
  "Chances are that an election is in progress.", 4144, "Find Master Browser Utility")
End If
TheNVFile.Close
Rem FileSystem.DeleteFile("C:\NetViewList.txt")
Wscript.Quit
Function FindPattern(TheText, ThePattern)
   RegularExpression.Pattern = ThePattern
  If RegularExpression.Test(TheText) Then
     FindPattern = "True"
  Else
     FindPattern = "False"
  End If
End Function

Function GetPattern(TheText, ThePattern, Flag)
  RegularExpression.Pattern = ThePattern
  Set Matches = RegularExpression.Execute(TheText) 
  For Each Match in Matches
    TheMatch = Match.Value 
    If Flag = "1" Then TheMatch = Mid(TheMatch, 3)
    If Flag = "2" Then TheMatch = Left(TheMatch, 15)
  Next
  GetPattern = TheMatch
End Function

Function GetNBTable(SysName)
  NBCommand = "nbtstat -a " & SysName
  WshShell.Run "Cmd.exe /c " & NBCommand &" > C:\NBTList.txt", 2,True
  Set TheNBTFile = FileSystem.OpenTextFile("C:\NBTList.txt", ForReading, True)
  GetNBTable = TheNBTFile.ReadAll
  TheNBTFile.Close
Rem  FileSystem.DeleteFile("C:\NBTList.txt")
End Function

You almost certainly have Visual Basic running on one if-not-all of your PCs--give it a try. Just cut & paste the above into Notepad, then save it with a name with a .vbs extension e.g. FindMasterBrowser.vbs, and double-click on it.