PC help: Network storage

Q I recently bought an external hard disk that connects to a network. Although I can access the setup pages using Internet Explorer, the Map Network Drive wizard is not working.

There is a router on the network that gives out IP addresses on the network. It has given the hard disk an address of 192.168.1.101 and I can also access the disk using the web address given in the manual.
Peter Foster

A Accessing the hard disk with Internet Explorer is only useful for setting it up, when working with files it is much better to use Windows Explorer. There is also a clever trick to using the Map Network Drive wizard in Windows Explorer as we will explain.

Left-click on the Start button and then on My Computer. Left-click in the address bar to select the contents and press delete. Type the following \\192.168.1.101\. Note that the slash leans the other way to an internet address. This is crucial for telling Windows that you want to access the files on the hard disk rather than the web interface. If the slashes are the wrong way the link will open in Internet Explorer instead showing the setup page not files.

The easiest way to run the Map Network Drive is by right-clicking on the folder that you would like to use as a drive and selecting Map Network Drive.

Running the wizard this ways means that the network drive is already selected. But this will only work if the folder is shown as a network folder.

Right click on the folder and then select Map Network Drive. Select a drive from the top menu. Notice that the folder option is greyed out. Click on Finish and the drive link will be created.

The Map Network Drive can also be started from the Windows Explorer window by clicking on the Tools menu and then selecting Map Network Drive.

In this case the actual folder must be selected by hand. Click on the Browse button and then on the small plus symbol next to Entire Network, then Microsoft Windows Network, the name of the network hard disk and then on the folder that will be the network drive. Click on OK and then on Finish. If this doesn’t work, check your firewall settings – read our article here for more guidance.