Windows 7 - Can't share a HDD through a router

Hi all,

I recently purchased a new routeur, D-Link's DIR-825. I am quite happy with it's performance so far, the main reason I bought this model was that it has a USB port so that I could use a HDD as a network.

I installed the "Shareport" utility provided by D-Link and yesterday I finally got around to plug my HDD into the routeur. Things went smoothly and I was able to "connect" to the drive from my home computer.

I then turn on my laptop, which is my work computer, and tried to connect to the drive. Shareport told me that it was already connected and needed to be disconnected.

I mean the whole idea behind me buying a routeur with a USB port was to have a hard drive that would serve as a network backup that could be accessed by both computers at any given time...

Besides, if only one computer can be connected to it at a time that's not what I call sharing, the "Shareport" utility should have a different name then.

Now is that inherent to this type of setup or is it simply a show of the software limited capabilities?

Thanks,

Phil

If you share a folder on your home computer does your work computer see it? If not then your work computer and your home computer probably believe they are on two different networks.

Oh yes I can share folders between my computers, no problem there.

Why should I have to share this drive from one computer to the other...doesn't that defeat the purpose of plugging it in the routeur in the first place?

I thought that the idea was to have a centralized drive that can be access from both computers independently whether one is powered on while the other is not and vice-versa...Were my expectations wrong or can this be achieved?

Thanks,

Phil

I agree, it should do what you want. What about a workaround, use shareport to mount it on the home pc and then on your home pc set it as shared read/write for the network. See if maybe that will work. You would have to leave the home computer on but I usually do that anyway. Just set the monitor and local drives to turn off after an idle period.