Sharing external hard drive

[Hokiefyd]

I have all of my personal files on an external hard drive so I can move it about from computer to computer as I need or desire. However, it doesn't seem to work as seamlessly as it should. I've had problems before with "ownership" of the files. The drive was originally established on Computer A. If I connect the drive to Computer B, it will sometimes give me grief that all of the files are owned by the user on Computer A. I've also had corruption of the Recycling Bin on this external hard drive that took me a while to straighten out -- I think it was due to me moving it from one computer to another.

Is there a way for me to use my personal files on various machines like this with an external drive? Or are these problems more or less unavoidable (in the Windows environment), and would it be better for me to switch to a wireless hard drive "cloud server", like a WD My Book Live?

 

[Vern_in_IL]

I like the Western Digital My Passport external hard disk. It has a encryption chip on the controller board to encrypt the entire drive.

 

[Tegger]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
problems before with "ownership" of the files.

Make a folder on the drive where all your files will be kept (it can have subfolders). Then you need to Share that folder with "Full Permissions" for "Everyone". That's the simplest, and should pose no security risks if you are the only one with access to the drive.

Right-click on the folder and choose Properties. Click the Sharing tab. Then click the Sharing button and go from there.

Depending on your OS, you may need to enable Advanced Sharing to be able to share with Everyone.

 

[Donald]

Originally Posted By: Vern_in_IL
I like the Western Digital My Passport external hard disk. It has a encryption chip on the controller board to encrypt the entire drive.


Where is the drive? If its in your house I am not sure i would worry about encryption.

If a thief comes into my house with a weapon I would give him what he wants be it money or a computer or an encryption key.

 

[spackard]

If you can live with the 4GiB filesize limit, format it as FAT32.

Your user SID is different on the different computers, your external HDD is formatted with NTFS, and you are writing the user SID with the file.

There isn't a concept of ownership with the FAT32 filesystem.