cannot access USB drive from other computer

drobe

I have a dual booting computer using 2 hard drives, I press F12 and select whichever drive I want to boot from.

One hard drive has Windows 7 and the other Windows 8.1.

I added the second hard drive so I could try windows 8 without disturbing windows 7.

Also there are 2 people accessing the 2 computers and use whatever OS is applicable at the time.

I also discovered that some old programs I had wouldn't work with windows 8.1 without me upgrading my program and of course paying to do so, so I have kept my windows 7 hard drive.

I have a second computer with windows 7 in another room connected wirelessly to my Virgin router and therefor to my dual booting computer.

I have a USB drive connected to this computer for backups and storing music and videos.

I can access this USB drive over my network when I am booted into Windows 8.1 but not when it is booted into Windows 7.

If I set up the network while both computers are in Windows 7 I can access the drive but when I boot into Windows 8.1 and set it up so I can access the USB drive.

When I then boot the computer back into Windows 7 I can no longer access the USB drive over my network because I no longer have permission.

As far as I can tell, Windows 8.1 does something to the USB drive permissions so that if it is subsequently booted into Windows 7 it no longer works over the network.

I can still access the USB drive from the dual booting computer whichever OS is booted.

I was thinking of getting this from amazon. you need to put amazon etc in front of the address,

/Personal-Cloud-Storage-Network-Attached/dp/B00499DMRQ/ref=sr_1_1/279-8729620-3788449?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1385211903&sr=1-1&keywords=nas+storage+drive


Would this solve my problem?

I will be buying another external hard drive as I need more storage space anyway.

Johnmcl7

I don't think Windows 8 is doing anything to the USB drive to stop it working, I think it simply has slightly more relaxed permissions by default as it's likely Windows 7 that is not allowing access to the drive rather than the drive itself. Do you have any shares created on the Windows 7 hard drive and if so are they accessible from the other machine? What error are you getting when you trying to connect to the drive under Windows 7?

The device you've mentioned is a NAS device which allows you to have the hard drive connected to the network and independent of a PC so if you're wanting central storage from any PC that is a good idea. The performance of the drive can vary quite a bit with price as can the flexibility of the configuration so it's worth having a good read through reviews and see if it suits your requirements.

John

drobe

Do you have any shares created on the Windows 7 hard drive

It all worked when I only had one hard drive with Windows 7 on it.

It even worked when I installed the second drive with Windows 8 test version

It all stopped working when I upgraded to Windows 8.1.

The hard drive I showed is just a type, I.E. NAS hard drive, I will of course research what is best and cheapest.

Then put it on my Christmas list. And still get whatever my grandkids decide to give me and end up buying it myself