How Do I Connect a Laptop to a Desktop PC & Use the Desktop PC Hard Drive as Primary or Master?

Connecting a laptop to a PC is basically creating a local network.

Transferring files between a desktop PC and a laptop can be time-consuming. Luckily, there's a way you can easily set up your desktop PC and laptop to both share the same network, thereby turning one of your computers into the "master" and the other into the "slave." This is called a Local Area Network (LAN), and you can usually have one up and running fairly quickly.

Things You'll Need

• Ethernet crossover cable (long enough to connect to both computers)

Instructions

1. Turn off all antivirus software on both computers. Since you're going to be hooking the desktop to the laptop and not to the Internet, you'll be fine. If you don't turn off the software, the antivirus programming is going to think that any kind of signal you send through the line is a virus and it will block it.

2. Hook up the Ethernet crossover cable to each computer, plugging it into the Ethernet connection of both computers. This should cause an icon of a computer to appear in the lower right-hand area of both computers (where the clock is usually found). Using the desktop PC, right-click on the icon and choose "Network Connections." On the "Local Area Connection" icon, right-click and choose "Properties."

3. Double-click on "Internet Protocol." This will open the "General" area. Click on the radio button that reads "Use the Following IP Address" and enter the following: for the IP address, type in (without the quotation marks) "192.168.1.2" and for the Subnet mask type in (minus the quotation marks) "255.255.255.0" and then click "OK." On the laptop PC, right-click on the icon and choose "Network Connections." On the "Local Area Connection" icon, right-click and choose "Properties." Double-click on "Internet Protocol" and click on the radio button "Use the Following IP Address." This time, you will want to type in an IP address (minus the quotation marks) of "192.168.1.1" and a Subnet mask (minus the quotation marks) of "255.255.255.0" and click OK.

4. Right-click on "My Computer" and click on "Properties" on both computers. Both computers should have a LAN connection that reads "WORKGROUP." On each computer, click "OK."

5. Restart both computers.

Tips & Warnings

• As with anything involving changing the settings on a computer, make sure you have set a "System Restore" for both computers prior to undertaking the procedure. To do this, go to "Start," then "Control Panel" on each computer and click on the icon that reads "System." This will open a series of tabs, one of which is "System Restore." Follow the instructions onscreen and create a restore point for each computer. That way, if something goes wrong, you can reset the system to return to its previous restore point.

References

• DigitGeek: How to Create a LAN Connection Between 2 PCs
• Windows Networking: Ethernet Tutorial Part I: Networking Basics