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Trouble accessing USB HDD through SMB2 after a factory reset

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elenhil

Occasional Visitor
Hi there! I wonder if you could help me out:

Some time ago I performed a factory reset of my RT-AC66U B1 running Asuswrt-Merlin v386.5_2. I have since been been struggling with accessing an HDD I have connected to the said router.

The issue is that it takes forever to access it in Windows Explorer. I disabled HDD powersaving to exclude the spin-up factor, but it made no difference. The most puzzling thing is that I can access the said disk just fine from my laptop (via wi-fi, that is), but my desktop PC (via Ethernet, that is), running the same-ish version of Win10, takes a couple of minutes to navigate to a single folder.

If the root of the issue is, indeed, the factory reset, what settings could I possibly have overlooked that might have something to do with this sort of behaviour?
 
For my home network? No.

I do have an OpenVPN configuration (for remote work) on the affected desktop, though, but this issue occurs when it is turned off, too (unless the virtual network adapters it added, TAP and Wintun, might somehow have an effect on my regular Ethernet one - I'm not really knowledgeable in the subject).
 
The issue is that it takes forever to access it in Windows Explorer. I disabled HDD powersaving to exclude the spin-up factor, but it made no difference. The most puzzling thing is that I can access the said disk just fine from my laptop (via wi-fi, that is), but my desktop PC (via Ethernet, that is), running the same-ish version of Win10, takes a couple of minutes to navigate to a single folder.
Are you using a single router/wifi or do you have more than one device setup?

I'm thinking if you have multiple devices you might have inadvertently setup two subnets by resetting the router. This can cause issues like you're describing.

If you have a PC that's on 24/7 plugging the drive into that and sharing it would be a better idea.
 
Are you using a single router/wifi or do you have more than one device setup?

I'm thinking if you have multiple devices you might have inadvertently setup two subnets by resetting the router. This can cause issues like you're describing.

If you have a PC that's on 24/7 plugging the drive into that and sharing it would be a better idea.
I am using a single router/wifi, the aforementioned RT-AC66U B1 (so far as my home network is concerned - its WAN access is supplied by a PON terminal operating as a bridge). Just in case, what settings should I check to rule out the subnets theory?

The thing is, prior to the reset everything used to be OK (I now have a separate issue with file sharing between my laptop and desktop, which might or might not be related - Windows file sharing is a PITA), and I would really like to return to just how it was (I did like to have the router as a quasi-NAS independent of my PC).

If it matters at all, after the reset I changed my LAN address from 192.168.0.x to 192.168.1.x (the default one)
 
If it matters at all, after the reset I changed my LAN address from 192.168.0.x to 192.168.1.x (the default one)
Check that the network connection on all your Windows PC's are still set to Private with file sharing and network discovery enabled. Sometimes when the LAN IP address changes Windows will change the network to Public.
 
Well, the first thing to check would be the IP on either device to make sure they're both in 192.168.1.x/24

Test the drive by plugging into the PC directly to make sure it's working.

As @ColinTaylor mentioned double check the windows firewall to make sure they're set to private.

If everything checks out a hard reset on the router again to clear any issues might be the next step. Setup from scratch not from a backup configuration file.
 
Ok, renaming the disk ('device name' in router GUI) seems to have solved the access issue. Probably had something to do with the IP change (same network drive name, same credentials, different IP - might have upset some sort of network cache in Windows, I dunno). Thanks for your suggestions!
 

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