Is this possible

Bo Borland · Post by **Bo Borland** » 28 Feb 2013 8:00 pm

can a hard drive in a pc be shared and accessed with a lap top and a usb to usb cable??

admin · Post by **b0b** » 28 Feb 2013 11:14 pm

It's tricky to set that up. It's a lot easier to do it wireless if they can both connect to the same local wi-fi network.

Melvin Elliott · Post by **Melvin Elliott** » 1 Mar 2013 7:58 am

USB would have to be a "cross over cable".
They are usually yellow to let you know.

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 1 Mar 2013 8:22 am

I just do it like Bob says. I have a laptop with an external drive in the bedroom and a desktop in the dining room and use the wifi to network them together so I can access files on either computer from the other. Works great. Of course, if you don't have wifi, you could always just go to a computer store and buy a network switch (if you don't have a modem that allows more than one computer to hook to it making networking possible) and network the 2 together using cables. That's what I did in the last place I lived where I didn't have wifi.

Cal Sharp · Post by **Cal Sharp** » 1 Mar 2013 9:32 am

Firewire works to connect two Macs, under certain circumstances.

Bo Borland · Post by **Bo Borland** » 2 Mar 2013 8:39 am

I tried the network wizard with no success..
I have a DSL modem wired to my PC windows XP as the main computer. THere is also a lap top running windows 7 which connect to the wireless in house wifi ..
There are also a couple of kindles and and an IPAD which can connect to the wifi but they do not need to be in the network .
Using the network wizard i created a network name and when prompted a network disk on my usb flash drive.. after rebooting as prompted, I placed the flash drive in the laptop and ran the network file but I got an error message about having to manually set the data.

That was it..

Chris Dorch · Post by **Chris Dorch** » 2 Mar 2013 11:04 am

By default, file sharing is not enabled on certain versions of XP and not at all on Win7. That will have to be enabled 1st... Second, you'll need to share the drive as a folder. Once those two are done, you should be able to access the folder by using \\computername\sharename or \\IPAddress\sharename.

Computer to computer USB cables are called FAST transfer cables. They can be acquired at target.. Not sure how they work, ever used them...

Crossover cables are generally ethernet (network) cables. The can be purchased as well. Make sure it says crossover on it though... I know if you are using a crossover, you'll still have to do the above mentioned items...