Home Networking with PCs?

ferdyferdy
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Hi, I have a couple of Apple Powerbooks, and a desktop & aptop PC. Can I setup a wireless network between the Powerbook and PCs? I'm running OSX and XP respectively.



Also, how can I setup an external hard drive to be writable on my Mac? I have a USB Western Digital that I setup for a PC to backup data. When I connect it to the Mac it says it is read only, and I can't write to it. Is it possible to share this drive to make it writable from both the Mac and the PC?



Thanks for any help.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 1
    allinoneallinone Posts: 279member
    As to your first question, I am guessing that both machines are already on a wireless network, for internet access, no?



    You just need to figure out how to connect between the two. I'll let someone with more pc knowledge speak on how to set it up on the PC side but on the Mac side it is pretty simple.



    Preferences > Sharing > Services:



    [X] Widows Sharing turns on smb services

    [X] Remote Login turns on SSH services

    [X] FTP Access turns on FTP services



    etc.



    then on your PC just enter the URI of the Mac.



    for instance PCs on my LAN connect to my Mac at the following address:



    \\\\192.168.1.100\\AllInOne



    and login with the Mac username and password.





    As far as reading PC formated drives on a Mac I believe that Macs can only read FAT32 formatted media but not write to it.



    Again, someone else will probably be able to tell you how to format the drive so that it is universally readable. This is only an issue when plugging the drive directly into the Mac. When you connect over the network the Mac will be able to read and write.



    Hope this helps.
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