How to Make a Hard Drive Network Ready
A local area network does a lot more than allow several computers to share an Internet connection. Users on a LAN can share printers and files or folders as well. While many Windows network users only share documents or media files in a few shared folders, it is possible to share entire hard drives with other users on the network as well. Therefore, if your computer has a second hard drive or external storage device that contains files you want to share with others, you can use the sharing features Windows to make the entire drive accessible to everyone on the network or specific users only.
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Instructions
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Click "Start," then "Computer." Right-click the drive letter of the hard drive you want to share on the local network. Click "Properties" on the pop-up menu.
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Click the "Sharing" tab in the "Disk Properties" window, then the "Advanced Sharing" button.
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Click and enable the "Share this folder" option box. Enter a share name in the "Share" text box. By default, Windows populates the "Share" text box with the drive letter of the hard drive. Change this to something short but descriptive, such as "JohnC," or "MainCDrive" or something similar. This makes the driver easier to differentiate if there are other shared hard drives on the network.
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Click the "Permissions" button. Highlight the user names of the people to whom you want to provide access to the shared hard drive. If you want all users on the network to be able to access files and folders on the drive, click and highlight the "Everyone" option.
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Click the "Full Control" option box under the "Allow" label. This option allows other network users to read and write to documents or files on the shared hard drive.
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Click the "Apply" button, then "OK."
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Click the "Apply" button in the "Advanced Sharing" window, then "OK."
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Click the "Close" button in the hard drive "Properties" window. The hard drive is now network ready and accessible to other users of the LAN or workgroup.
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Tips & Warnings
You can share USB flash drive or external hard drives using the same method. However, if you disconnect the drive from the PC -- after sharing it -- you may have to reconfigure sharing settings once you reconnect it to the machine.
