Specific Computer Can't See Another's Shared Folder.

[bmichaels556]

Man, this is extremely annoying. Just got a Thinkpad T440s and so my sort of "home server" setup is a simple shared 4TB USB HDD and it's worked pretty well overall. I've noticed transfer speeds can be fairly low, but I'm not sure if it's my crappy ISP-supplied router, or if there's some kind of additional overhead that makes a USB drive slower over a network the way I have it set up. I'm not really sure. Even still, when it works, it functions well! Even if it can be pretty slow... It still is totally sufficient for streaming 1080p movies and things like that.

 

One problem I've noticed is that some machines, namely one of my older laptops as well as this T440s, REFUSE to see the shared folder over the network. One of my old laptops did totally fine with it. Also, my two phones, both with ES File Manager work perfectly as well. Likewise, my T440s is able to be seen by the main computer, as well as my phone(s). It's extremely frustrating...

 

Anyone have this problem before? Were you able to fix it? I even decided to wire up the laptop just for curiosity but that didn't help either. Would appreciate any help you could give me. Also, any tips on speeding everything up would be great, but not the critical problem at the moment.

[Oshino Shinobu]

First thing I'd do is disable Windows firewall (assuming that they're windows) on the affected computers and see if they can access it then. If they can, allow file and printer sharing through the firewall. 

[bmichaels556]

15 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

First thing I'd do is disable Windows firewall (assuming that they're windows) on the affected computers and see if they can access it then. If they can, allow file and printer sharing through the firewall. 

Shoot... Didn't seem to make any difference.  

 

Actually, it's weird because I was able to share as a media device for some reason, and the settings in firewall and wherever else seem to match for sharing files, but no luck. 

[Master Disaster]

You contradict yourself in the question & post, the questions says another computers folder but the post says its a USB drive plugged into a router. Which is it?

 

The most comon cause for this issue is down to workgroup. Go to a machine that can connect and check which workgroup its a member of then head to the ones that can't and make sure they're on the EXACT same workgroup.

[bmichaels556]

2 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

You contradict yourself in the question & post, the questions says another computers folder but the post says its a USB drive plugged into a router. Which is it?

 

The most comon cause for this issue is down to workgroup. Go to a machine that can connect and check which workgroup its a member of then head to the ones that can't and make sure they're on the EXACT same workgroup.

Oh, no I meant I tried plugging the laptop into the router just to see if that would help for some reason, but it didn't. My main computer (with the USB drive) is wired though. 

 

I'll check that out. 

[bmichaels556]

26 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

You contradict yourself in the question & post, the questions says another computers folder but the post says its a USB drive plugged into a router. Which is it?

 

The most comon cause for this issue is down to workgroup. Go to a machine that can connect and check which workgroup its a member of then head to the ones that can't and make sure they're on the EXACT same workgroup.

Damn... The quest is over. For whatever reason I can't comprehend, the workgroup settings were different on both... I just set them the same way "home network" or whatever, and kept the workgroup name the same and restarted my main PC. Shows up fine on my laptop...

 

Thank you!!

[Master Disaster]

9 minutes ago, bmichaels556 said:

Damn... The quest is over. For whatever reason I can't comprehend, the workgroup settings were different on both... I just set them the same way "home network" or whatever, and kept the workgroup name the same and restarted my main PC. Shows up fine on my laptop...

 

Thank you!!

That was actually my second suggestion, Public network or Private network.

 

Anyway glad you got it sorted.

[bmichaels556]

2 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

That was actually my second suggestion, Public network or Private network.

 

Anyway glad you got it sorted.

You got me right to what I needed to see ha. 

 

Uh, you wouldn't happen to know how to get that shared folder (or maybe a mapped network drive) to work for Steam games would you? I'm seeing some mixed suggestions from Google, so I'm wondering if you had any experience with it.