Shared drive only appearing for some computers

So I have three computers plugged into the same modem. (motorola's surfboard for TWC)

I have an external USB 3.0 24 TB drive plugged into one of the computers.

I went to 'My Computer', right clicked the external drive, went to sharing and shared the drive read-only.

One of the other two computers can see this drive. Though I have to login with MY login information on that computer.

The other computer didn't see it.

So I tried the horrendous: Security tab -> Edit -> Add -> Advanced -> Find Now -> Everyone deal.

So when I applied this, it started scanning through the drive and setting security permissions file by file.

I wasn't kidding when I said this was a 24 TB drive. So that would take hours. And it is a horrible solution because when more media gets added to this drive, I'll have to come back here and run the whole process again?

Why on earth isn't sharing the drive just having it pop up on the computer's network?

And why do I have to login with MY credentials on the computer that does see the drive?

All computers are running 64-bit Windows 7.

You really should only be sharing from the C:>Users folder rather than the C: drive itself.

If you had a Homegroup set up that might prevent other machines not in the Homegroup from seeing the drive.

Once the folders are shared you shouldn't have to go through the process again, although you should have set that up through the Users folder rather than the C: drive per the link below.
HDD sharing

Not sure about the credentials but it may help to turn off password protected sharing in the Advanced Sharing Settings.

Please explain what you mean by sharing form the C:>Users folder.

I am not sharing my boot drive. And I'm not sharing a folder, I'm sharing a drive.

I never setup a Homegroup, but I checked on the computer that can't see the drive properly and it says it *is* in a homegroup, so that shouldn't be an issue, correct?

Again what do you mean by the Users folder? I'm trying to share a drive.

I went to advanced sharing settings and Password Protected Sharing was *off*.

And what do you mean I wouldn't have to go through the process again? The process was iterating through every single folder/file on the drive. If it's doing that that means if I add more folders/files I'd have to do the process again.

I don't want to do that process. I simply want to share the drive.

Do you think I'm trying to share a folder in the C:\Users folder? This is not the case. I am trying to share an external drive.

Please help.. but please provide help specific to the question I asked.

sharpnova said:

Please explain what you mean by sharing form the C:>Users folder.

I am not sharing my boot drive. And I'm not sharing a folder, I'm sharing a drive.

I never setup a Homegroup, but I checked on the computer that can't see the drive properly and it says it *is* in a homegroup, so that shouldn't be an issue, correct?

Again what do you mean by the Users folder? I'm trying to share a drive.

I went to advanced sharing settings and Password Protected Sharing was *off*.

And what do you mean I wouldn't have to go through the process again? The process was iterating through every single folder/file on the drive. If it's doing that that means if I add more folders/files I'd have to do the process again.

I don't want to do that process. I simply want to share the drive.

Do you think I'm trying to share a folder in the C:\Users folder? This is not the case. I am trying to share an external drive.

Please help.. but please provide help specific to the question I asked.

The C:>Users folder is where Windows sets the sharing permissions by default, there are plenty of good reasons for this, not to mention sharing from the root of the C: drive is considered a security risk so is not advised for this reason.

If only one machine is in a Homegroup this can prevent shares from being accessed by other machines in the Workgroup so this can present some problems. You simply need to leave the Homegroup on that one machine in order to see if this was causing a problem or not. Homegroup - Leave

External drive or not, the default for Windows is to share from the C:>Users folder and not the C: drive itself. I believe this is explained in the link I posted earlier. :)

I don't see how this helps me?

I'm trying to share a drive. To do so I went to My Computer, right clicked the drive and set it to be shared.

Why would I need to navigate into my Users folder to share a drive?

And can you please help me with my issue?

sharpnova said:

I don't see how this helps me?

I'm trying to share a drive. To do so I went to My Computer, right clicked the drive and set it to be shared.

Why would I need to navigate into my Users folder to share a drive?

And can you please help me with my issue?

I just did help and explained the reason for this.

It's also very likely that Windows will have a hard time seeing drives bigger than 2TB unless they are partitioned by using GPT per the link below.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2581408

I don't understand your explanation. Could you please elaborate.

Why is right clicking the drive and enabling sharing not working? Keep in mind I am *not* trying to share the C: drive. It is an external USB drive.

I believe the issue here may be that you think I am trying to share a folder that is within my users folder. I am trying to share an entire drive. It is not the C: drive. It happens to be the E: drive.

Oh and also, none of the computers have a problem recognizing this drive. I have had this plugged into every one of the computers individually at one time or another and they had no trouble recognizing/reading/writing the drive whatsoever.