Mac OSX and Windows XP Drive Sharing

[Ed Wolfstein]

I've been working on both platforms for over a year now, and so I've been moving JPEGs back and forth on a network between my Mac and my Windows machines quite a bit. I can use both versions of Photo Mechanic, and for the most part, they offer pretty much the same workflow.

My Mac can see all my shared Windows drives, and my Windows machines will see my Mac folders - no problem. But I've added some additional drives to my Mac (\Volumes), and for the life of me, I cannot seem to make them accessible from my Windows machines. I've checked knowledge bases (Mac and Windows) and nothing seems to touch on sharing those additional volumes.

Luckely, they are external drives, so I can simply (and physically) move them back and forth, but if anyone can enlighten me on how to get those Volumes visible on a Windows network, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks.

- Ed.

[Ed Wolfstein]

Oh, and one more thing: What's up with those "dot underscore" files in OSX. Are they a function of the operting system as thumbnails, or are they related to Photo Mchanic specifically?

Thanks again to all.

- Ed.

[Kirk Baker]

Oh, and one more thing: What's up with those "dot underscore" files in OSX. Are they a function of the operting system as thumbnails, or are they related to Photo Mchanic specifically?

I can't answer your first question about sharing your external drives, because I only share drives from the Windows side myself (too worried about viruses and what a PC connected to my Mac drives could do. )

As for the ._ files, they are the resource forks of each of your files and are not specific to Photo Mechanic.  You can safely ignore them on the Windows side.  The Mac will use them transparently for purposes of reading and writing to the resource forks of your files.

-Kirk

[gajones]

Ed,

You can do this with Sharepoints http://www.hornware.com/sharepoints/

Using Sharepoints, create a new share, setting the Directory to the external drive you wish to share.  Remember to enable Windows (SMB) Sharing for the share you create.

To avoid permissions conflicts, you should probably also set the external drive to Ignore Ownership on this Volume (you do this on the Get Info window in the Finder)

Once that's done, on Windows just access your Mac from My Network Places and your new share will be there.

Or if you prefer, you can map it as a network drive.

Hope that helps, any probs or questions let me know!

Gareth

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[Ed Wolfstein]

Thanks Gareth!

I'm on the road shooting until June 19 - but as soon as I get back, I'll do it. That's EXACTLY what I was looking for!

- Ed.

[Ed Wolfstein]

Sharepoints is PERFECT. Thanks again Gareth - I've already sent them a PayPal donation to keep up the good work.

- Ed.

[Junebug]

Oh, and one more thing: What's up with those "dot underscore" files in OSX

Ed,

BlueHarvest is a program that can help ou with all those invisible Mac files in a Windows environment.

There is a good explanation of those files on their site also.

Jb.

http://www.zeroonetwenty.com/blueharvest/

[Ed Wolfstein]

I'll check it out, Jb. From what I've read so far, they do serve an important function for Macs, and you need only delete them if they're causing problems. I can live with the additional baggage on the Mac side, but only look to leave them out when FTPing, archiving, etc. which I often do from a synced Windows machine. Still, I'll give it a look. Thanks!

- Ed.

[gajones]

Sharepoints is PERFECT. Thanks again Gareth - I've already sent them a PayPal donation to keep up the good work.

- Ed.

You're welcome Ed, glad to hear it's working for you.

Gareth.