USB Ext HDD showing up in Computer on a different machine ?

The weirdest thing is happening when I connected an Ext. HDD to one of our machines; I happened to be on another machine and noticed an extra drive showing in "Computer", NOT Network, but Computer.

It is displaying the correct permanent name of the Ext. HDD and I can view and access everything with full control, just as if the drive were USB-connected directly to the machine.

I did not think such behavior was even possible.

I don't see this as a problem, but I am curious as to how it is happening.

I checked all our other LAN-connected machines and it is not showing on any of them.

Even more curious is the fact that this particular drive has never been directly connected to that machine.

I wish I knew how to replicate this on the rest of our machines with all of our other Ext. HDDs; it would sure come in handy.

I would start by disconnecting the external drive from whatever it is connected to; and I would unplug it from A/C power if it is plugged in.

• If you can still read and write to the drive after doing that, then you are dealing with a different drive.
• If you can no longer read and write to the drive after doing that, then I would remove every reference to the drive on every computer (right-click on the reference, then choose "remove" or "uninstall"). Now plug it into the desired computer. You should now have one and only one reference to the drive, and it will be on the computer that you plugged the drive into.

Thank you, mrphelps.

It is option two; when I unplug the drive in question, it disappears from the other machine.

This means that the drive was shared by the computer it was plugged into; and the other computer was set up to access the drive as a shared drive.

If you want it to be shared, then plug it back into the same computer; it will probably pick up right where it left off. But if you don't want it to be shared, you need to go into File Explorer on that computer and remove all references to the drive; and do the same on the other computer. After doing all of that, plug the drive back into the same computer.

mrjimphelps said:

This means that the drive was shared by the computer it was plugged into; and the other computer was set up to access the drive as a shared drive.

If you want it to be shared, then plug it back into the same computer; it will probably pick up right where it left off. But if you don't want it to be shared, you need to go into File Explorer on that computer and remove all references to the drive; and do the same on the other computer. After doing all of that, plug the drive back into the same computer.

Thanks.
I have everything on our private home network set such that all machines can access everything; and, after getting a lot of help from here, it has been working wonderfully.
What I thought was peculiar about this particular situation was that the Ext. HDD in question was showing under "Computer" instead of showing in "Network"; I had never seen that before.

BuckSkin said:

What I thought was peculiar about this particular situation was that the Ext. HDD in question was showing under "Computer" instead of showing in "Network"; I had never seen that before.

I have found that some things are just mysteries. You don't understand the process or the reason, but if it is all working fine for you, count your blessings and move on.