Attaching USB hard drive to router which contains Samba server (BTHome HUB)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Clive
  • Start date Start date
C

Clive

Hello,

The aim is to make my main storage device visible on my home windows
network.
I am having mixed results attaching a USB hard drive to a BT Home hub
router

The router has a USB A And USB B socket - intended for attaching a USB
printer. However, I have had success attaching one of my USB hard
drives (40GB) and see the drive through Windows XP network

The parameters come up something like

Windows network: BT
Server name : Thomson
Drive Name bt_7g

I can map the drive to a drive letter (say S) and read and write any
files to this 40GB device

However, when I try other devices including a Western Digitial 250GB
drive - none of the others are accessible from Windows XP - various
dialog boxes come up with messages like "device not found" when I
click through the windows explorer tree to get to the files on the
drive.

All the USB attached drives are formatted as FAT32 devices. I have
tried making the FAT32 partition on the WD drive smaller (90GB).
However the only drive that works is the 40GB drive (an iRiver H340
mp3 player in fact). The notes I have read on attaching USB drives to
the HOme Hub say that only FAT32 formatted drives are visible on the
Home Hub router.

I don't want to leave the iRiver H340 attached to the router - as it
is a portable device. I want to attach the WD250GB drive to the router
and leave it there so it is accessible from any device on the network.

Anything else I can try to make the WD250GB visible on the windows
network?


Thanks

Clive
 
Clive said:
Hello,

The aim is to make my main storage device visible on my home windows
network.
I am having mixed results attaching a USB hard drive to a BT Home hub
router

The router has a USB A And USB B socket - intended for attaching a USB
printer. However, I have had success attaching one of my USB hard
drives (40GB) and see the drive through Windows XP network

The parameters come up something like

Windows network: BT
Server name : Thomson
Drive Name bt_7g

I can map the drive to a drive letter (say S) and read and write any
files to this 40GB device

However, when I try other devices including a Western Digitial 250GB
drive - none of the others are accessible from Windows XP - various
dialog boxes come up with messages like "device not found" when I
click through the windows explorer tree to get to the files on the
drive.

All the USB attached drives are formatted as FAT32 devices. I have
tried making the FAT32 partition on the WD drive smaller (90GB).
However the only drive that works is the 40GB drive (an iRiver H340
mp3 player in fact). The notes I have read on attaching USB drives to
the HOme Hub say that only FAT32 formatted drives are visible on the
Home Hub router.

I don't want to leave the iRiver H340 attached to the router - as it
is a portable device. I want to attach the WD250GB drive to the router
and leave it there so it is accessible from any device on the network.

Anything else I can try to make the WD250GB visible on the windows
network?


Thanks

Clive
Click to expand...

You might try the freeware program USBDeview, found at
http://www.nirsoft.net/system_tools.html and try "Uninstalling" all entries
about the problem USB drives. Possibly XP just needs the trash taken out
and let it re-learn the drives after they are attached to the router in
order to get it right. Another thought might be to try temporarily swapping
one of the problem hard drives into the external case, if they are
compatible electronically, that does work and see if that makes any
difference. Might be something in the driver of the working external
chassis that is special.

Other than that it's anyone's guess as to what the USB drivers are set to
accept in the router itself.
 
GlowingBlueMist said:
You might try the freeware program USBDeview, found at
http://www.nirsoft.net/system_tools.html and try "Uninstalling" all
entries about the problem USB drives. Possibly XP just needs the
trash taken out and let it re-learn the drives after they are
attached to the router in order to get it right. Another thought
might be to try temporarily swapping one of the problem hard drives
into the external case, if they are compatible electronically, that
does work and see if that makes any difference. Might be something
in the driver of the working external chassis that is special.

Other than that it's anyone's guess as to what the USB drivers are
set to accept in the router itself.
Click to expand...

Other things to look at might be USB1 versus USB2. Who knows what the
working versus non-working drive interface actually is. The non-working
drives might also be drawing more current than the working one. Inserting
an externally powered USB hub between the router and the drives might get
them to work if that's the case.
 
Clive said:
Hello,

The aim is to make my main storage device visible on my home windows
network.
I am having mixed results attaching a USB hard drive to a BT Home hub
router

The router has a USB A And USB B socket - intended for attaching a USB
printer. However, I have had success attaching one of my USB hard
drives (40GB) and see the drive through Windows XP network

The parameters come up something like

Windows network: BT
Server name : Thomson
Drive Name bt_7g

I can map the drive to a drive letter (say S) and read and write any
files to this 40GB device

However, when I try other devices including a Western Digitial 250GB
drive - none of the others are accessible from Windows XP - various
dialog boxes come up with messages like "device not found" when I
click through the windows explorer tree to get to the files on the
drive.

All the USB attached drives are formatted as FAT32 devices. I have
tried making the FAT32 partition on the WD drive smaller (90GB).
However the only drive that works is the 40GB drive (an iRiver H340
mp3 player in fact). The notes I have read on attaching USB drives to
the HOme Hub say that only FAT32 formatted drives are visible on the
Home Hub router.

I don't want to leave the iRiver H340 attached to the router - as it
is a portable device. I want to attach the WD250GB drive to the router
and leave it there so it is accessible from any device on the network.

Anything else I can try to make the WD250GB visible on the windows
network?


Thanks

Clive
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_Home_Hub

"Undocumented features

The Home Hub includes a USB-A port which has no documented function.
It has been found that some devices (such as printers and USB mass storage
devices) connected to this port can be shared on that Hub's network.
Storage devices (hard disks and thumb drives) must be formatted to
FAT32, and hard disk drives must have an external power supply. For
hard disks, simply map a drive letter to either \\192.168.1.253\bt_7g
on v1 and v1.5 hubs, or \\192.168.1.253\Disk_a1 on V2.0 hubs.

All versions of the Home Hub V1, V1.5 and V2.0 have the USB-A port
which can be used for hard drives, but the V2.0 no longer has a USB-B
port for connecting to the PC. Ethernet must now be used."

BT source code related to Linux inside the hub.

http://www.btyahoo.com/broadband/adhoc_pages/gplcode.html

So there is no statement in the Wikipedia article, as to what the FAT32
limit would be.

Is there any way to access the internal Linux ? It is unlikely
to support Telnet, but maybe you could search around and see
if there is some way to hack into the hub.

If you want another way to do this, you can purchase one of the
NAS enclosures that are now available. They connect via Ethernet,
and they too have size limits. But this is a way to do something
similar with a separate box. At least one of these boxes, has
a 200GB or so limitation. So each review needs to be checked
for what people have determined is the size limit.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010090092+1054213783&Subcategory=92

A local store was offering some no-name generic NAS boxes for less
than $40, but without reviews, it isn't worth the gamble on them.
The store made up their own brand name for them, and Googling
revealed nothing.

Paul
 
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