Cant find NAS with Laptop

[meanpeach]

Hi,

I've got a Synology DS211+ Nas drive attached to an airport extreme via ethernet. My imac picks up teh NAS fine as a shared drive, but I have a laptop running XP which hooks up to the router (for the internet), but the NAS doesn't show up anywhere on the laptop. I've looked under network places, but nowt. What am I doing wrong or what do I need to do for it to show up. Any help or advice appreciated. Thanks.

 

[eibgrad]

Sometimes the network discovery process is slow. It depends on some rather arcane algorithms and network broadcasts. So it's not unusual to find situations in which network devices are not immediately VISIBLE. However, that doesn't mean they aren’t AVAILABLE.

If you go to a command window, you should be able to setup a drive mapping manually.

net use * \\<server-name>\<share-name> /persistent:yes

Obviously, you change <server-name> to the name of your NAS, and <share-name> to the share name. If the server name doesn't work, then use the explicit IP address instead.

net use * \\<ip-address>\<share-name> /persistent:yes

In either case, this will use the next available drive letter and map it to the NAS share.

Also, make sure you have sharing enabled on your PC and that any third party firewall or security suites you may be using are not blocking the necessary ports.

 

[meanpeach]

Hi eibgrad,

Thanks for the reply, appreciated. Unfortunately I tried your suggestion, but no change.. should it pop up immediately or will it take some time? I take it where you had <share-name> this is the name of the shared folder on the NAS?

I have temporarily disabled the firewall on the Laptop to make sure there are no issues there and on the NAS made an exception of the I.P address of the laptop, again just to make sure this isn't causing the problem.

I'm using the NAS as an itunes music server, but doesn't show up in itunes either. Tis driving me crazy!!

Any other thoughts.

 

[eibgrad]

Did you use the DSM utility to setup the NAS from the Mac machine? It's possible the NAS is configured to use the Apple protocol (afp) but not Windows (smb), by default. I know that seems unlikely, but I don't know anything about this particular NAS, and for all I know, it's Mac-centric. Maybe you have to explicitly enable Windows sharing through the DSM. Same thing w/ iTunes, maybe that has to be explicitly enable via the DSM (I have a different make/model of NAS, and I know its iTunes server if OFF by default).

 

[meanpeach]

Yeah I did set it up from the mac machine, although it's not a mac centric NAS. The itune server was an option I turned on. In the control panel there is an option for windows file service. (However, my knowledge on this stuff is pretty limited).

The option are;

Enable window file service which I've clicked. (Altho not sure what this is..also)
Under neath is a box to fill in for WINS server.
and check boxes for;
Support Windows off line files.
Optimise CIFS database.
Enable local maser browsing
Enable CIFS Recycle bin

Any of these seem like something that might help?

I've made sure the music folder is a shared folder, with guest and admin privileges, but can't see anything else that would help enable windows to share files.

Could it be a hiccup at the laptop end. It uses a Belkin network adaptor which plugs into the side of it. Would this cause issues. That said it is obviously picking up the network?

 

[eibgrad]

Yeah I did set it up from the mac machine, although it's not a mac centric NAS. The itune server was an option I turned on. In the control panel there is an option for windows file service. (However, my knowledge on this stuff is pretty limited).

The option are;

Enable window file service which I've clicked. (Altho not sure what this is..also)
Under neath is a box to fill in for WINS server.
and check boxes for;
Support Windows off line files.
Optimise CIFS database.
Enable local maser browsing
Enable CIFS Recycle bin

Any of these seem like something that might help?

I've made sure the music folder is a shared folder, with guest and admin privileges, but can't see anything else that would help enable windows to share files.

Could it be a hiccup at the laptop end. It uses a Belkin network adaptor which plugs into the side of it. Would this cause issues. That said it is obviously picking up the network?

Is there a location to specify the windows workgroup name? It might be defaulting to "workgroup" as a name, and perhaps you're using something else. All devices have to be using the same Windows Workgroup in order to share files and printer.

 

[meanpeach]

Arr, well there's a thing. Yes the NAS is defaulted to "workgroup". On the laptop when I clicked on view workgroup computers, it came up with an error message;

"Mshome is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions"

The list of servers fro this workgroup is not currently available"

Not really sure what that means, but could this be the problem.

P.S. Your help is really appreciated, thanks.

 

[eibgrad]

Microsoft used to use "workgroup" as the default workgroup name, then changed to "mshome" at some point (not sure when, might have been Vista). So if the NAS is set to “workgroup”, but your PC is “mshome”, that's a problem. Change the NAS to "mshome".

 

[meanpeach]

Arghhh!! Matching workgroup names and still no joy. I can't work it out. Just won't see the drive.. makes no sense. Is it something obvious I am missing?