MAC help needed - cant connect to NAS (LaCie)

jojonic

Hi all,

Any MAC users with experience of connecting a Network attached storage, please help!

I bought the OH a 1TB LaCie multimedia player / storage device (called a LaCinema if you've heard of it?) but he's having terrible trouble using it.

The drive should be visible on the network as another place to store files, I can see it fine from my windows laptop but for him, nothing. He did find it a couple of days ago and transferred a bunch of stuff over, but now - nothing.

Also it can be directly plugged into a laptop for file transfer... this works fine on mine, plug and play, but on his - again nothing... cant see it, cant find it, cant use it!!! ARGH!

If anyone can suggest anything we can do I'd be so grateful. I've been searching geeks forums all over the place but they speak a different language to me and im just more confused now than when I started!!

Thanks in advance.

diable

How has it been setup, sharing options etc etc

jojonic

So far as I know it was all plug and play... Im not sure how we would go about altering options on it. On my PC it just shows up as a hard drive which I can drag and drop files into.

Sorry for my very (un) helpful response :embarasse

poppy10_2

Did you format the drive when you first set it up?

The LaCinema comes formatted as NTFS, which is Windows only. If you didn't change it when you set it up, then you have two choices:

1. Reformat the drive as FAT32 (a format which can be read by both Windows and Mac) - although this means that everything on the drive will be deleted and you will have to transfer your files on to it again. To do this, just right click the drive on your Windows computer, select "Format", and in the options, select FAT32.

or

2. Get your boyfriend to install MacFUSE and then NTFS-3G on his macbook - this will allow the Mac to read the NTFS format.

Hammyman

It shouldn't make a difference what format the drive is in as the OS providing the networking takes care of all of that.

poppy10_2

Hammyman wrote: »

It shouldn't make a difference what format the drive is in as the OS providing the networking takes care of all of that.

Nonsense. Whether you're connecting over the network or over a USB cable, if the drive is in an incompatible file system format it won't be readable. Take a look at the user manual if you need to confirm it for yourself.

Hammyman

It doesn't mention anything about the file format. It does say you have to install the Lacie Network Assistant on any computer wanting to access it.

And FYI, anyone who has a clue about networking will tell you that the file system used is completely irrelevant as long as the OS reading the physical attached drive can read it. Otherwise going on your half baked knowledge, over half of the internet would be unavailable to Windows machines as the servers are running Linux or a Unix typically using EXT3 or similar.

trets77

i have a Buffalo NAS and a Mac .

NAS has a program that maps and finds the NAS on the network . called the NAS Navigator . it's a Buffalo specific program but surely LaCinema have a similar support program on their website .

even just plugging the NAS into the Laptop direct i need to use the NAS Navigator program to find it . and i need to scan for it several times before it gets found .

diable

On page 18 of the manual it states the following.

As the drive is preformatted in NTFS for immediate use with Windows, you will need to reformat the drive into HFS+ in order for the drive to mount on your Mac. Fol- low the steps in section 9.2. Reformatting: Mac Users, then proceed to step b below.

debitcardmayhem

diable wrote: »

On page 18 of the manual it states the following.

As the drive is preformatted in NTFS for immediate use with Windows, you will need to reformat the drive into HFS+ in order for the drive to mount on your Mac. Fol- low the steps in section 9.2. Reformatting: Mac Users, then proceed to step b below.

Only necessary if you want to access via USB, of course then you can't access it from USB on Windows. It will work as a SMB server page 44 of manual or using Network Assistant from a Mac (need to install that first) page 42. Hope that helps.

The whole point of NAS is it should be O/S independant.

diable

Ha HA I should have RTFM properly instead of giving it a quick glance and you are correct about the native OS on the drive handling the data.