USB HDD attached to BT Home Hub problem

Dear all

I have a 250gb HDD formatted to FAT32 and connected to USB socket of my Home Hub to try and act as simple NAS.

I am able to map network drive and see HDD from all computers and also navigate into the couple of folders that are on it.

I am however unable to copy stuff onto it or even create a new folder, get the error message access is denied, disk may be write protected or full etc.

There is no right click option to share or no other way seemingly to allow access.

Any ideas gratefully received.

Having not used this method before, I can only hazard a guess based on 'the usual ways of doing things' but...

Have you checked in your home hub settings? There might be some way/where in that to manage permissions.

If not, it could depend on the machine it was formatted on and the folders created a to who has permission, put it back on the PC it was originally formatted on an changetge permissions of the whole drive to include read/write access for 'everyone'!

Just a couple of ideas/thoughts!

Thanks, tried both ideas.Only thing I can do in terms of permissions is check both boxes under network sharing and allowing users to change files but still no joy sadly. Nothing to tinker on the hub. Found lots of stuff online how to format and map the drive but nothing if the drive cant then be used!!

Some interesting stuff here. No guarantees it will solve the issue - Ghozer may well have hit the nail on the head fairly and squarely.

swarfendor43

Thanks, seen that site and others. No probs mapping drive or creating a network place just cant add files to it. Just tried another drive that is formatted to NTFS but as I have read this isnt picked up by the hub at all.

Strange when my fat32 works fine when plugged into a pc, will keep trying different things. I formatted with fat32formatter a freeware utility that appears well rated, DOS said volume was too large and windows didnt give me a fat32 option.

Cheers

Sometimes your users must have user names and passwords to be able to read and write to shared drives/folders. Try giving everyone a user name and password, it's worth a try

And if all else fails, your spare drive is an old IDE one and you have £22 + P&P to spare; I'm using one of these, which seemed pretty good value

Just had a thought. I struggled a while ago, with a network caddy rather than a usb one, but had a similar problem. I could create folders and files whilst using it as a conventional USB caddy, and they were seen when I connected it as a network one, I just couldn't do anything with them. The box I referred to in my previous post does both RJ45 & USB-2 Connectivities.

Rather than letting the system find your drive when setting up the "map network drive", try typing in the address manually, as in \\storage I needed to specify the last 4 digits of the MAC address as I have more that one network drive, (as in \\storage-abcd ) but that obviously wouldn't apply to you.

In fact can you access the drive by typing \\storage in the RUN box?

I'm on XP Pro by the way

Thought I had bricked the HDD last night as it was no longer recognised so had to assign a drive letter and reformat back to NTFS.

Will try again with a pen drive tonight formatted to Fat32, but if I succeed will go with the passport drive again.

Any recommendations for a good free utility that will format a 250gb to Fat32 appreciated.

Thanks all!

I don't know what operating system you are using, but try doing it from the command prompt. All is explained HERE

Alternatively a Windows 98 boot floppy should do the job.

Good luck

Thanks, tried that initially but got the message that the drive was too big after over an hour!!

Saw the swiss knife utility on that site might give that a go.

I've just done a 500 Gig drive by putting it in a spare PC with no other drives, booting to a particular floppy I have and formatting it from there. I'll willingly assist if you are anywhere near Crookes and it's an IDE drive. My spare machine is too old for SATA