USB Drive on Asus RT N66U Router seen/mapped on Windows 7 but not Windows 8.1

[sfx2000]

I suppose we've gone down this particular rat-hole because there is no easy answer to OP's question, other than, well, guess what, it's an old Samba server, and Win8.1 is smarter than it - and MSFT owns the protocol - some things are just not made to work together...

LOL...

 

[sfx2000]

Upgrading from XP to 7, for my company, was a nearly $10M project with soft costs probably reaching 10x that (we'll never truly be able to quantify the productivity lost, or gained, from moving to a new OS).

Same thing at many companies... XP in many ways was just right... enough Win2K to be stable, enough Win98 to be useful, and Vista was horrible - WinXP became a problem for MSFT, as it was, in many ways, too good for the users... it really was.

Win7 is really like how it should have been with Vista, and great Windows platform - enough XP to be useful, and enough moving forward to make things a bit easier for users... even though looking back, there was a bit of a challenge compared to the XP way, it wasn't a big jump, and again, usability for Win7 was very good...

Win8 was a total shift - underneath, it was all shiny, a lot of cruft removed, simplified, improved... with a UI that was a total nightmare for usability and application discovery - where's my MS Word? Where's my Doc's? How to... snatch Defeat from the Jaws of Victory there...

I think most of the Win8 users are users because they don't have a choice... it's what shipped on the BigBox Laptop/Desktop they bought, I doubt many Win7/WinXP users jumped into that pond...

 

[jlake]

I know I'm not alone with this issue and have tried pretty much everything I've seen so I'm looking for fresh ideas.

My situation:

I have a Windows 7 desktop (custom built) and a Toshiba Windows 8.1 laptop. Both are connected to the router wirelessly. Both are on the same Homegroup. Both have the Windows Firewall and both have Nod32 Antivirus. Everything is up to date.

I attached an External Hard Drive (WD Elements 1TB, NTFS) to the router and turned Samba on. I was able to map it on the Windows 7 computer but regardless of what I do, I cannot see it on the Windows 8.1 machine. I've tried about 6-7 fixes I've seen on the web, including (but not limited to) trying to map the address directly as well as turning off both the antivirus and firewall and nada, can't see/map it. I have no idea what could be wrong with it but since I see it fine on the Windows 7 machine, I kinda doubt it's a router issue.

Anyone have any idea?

Fblain,

I have Windows 8.1 home, and I can map a network drive on RT-N66U. I haven't made any changes to Windows 8.1.

Do you have any data on the drive? If not, put a couple files on there and see if you can map it then.
Maybe there's a bug and I just got lucky. I don't know.

 

[htismaqe]

I suppose we've gone down this particular rat-hole because there is no easy answer to OP's question, other than, well, guess what, it's an old Samba server, and Win8.1 is smarter than it - and MSFT owns the protocol - some things are just not made to work together...

LOL...

I was going to post this very thing last night. I'm not sure what else we can do to help.

 

[stevech]

My RT-N56 WiFi router's USB port- with a thumb/flash drive plugged in, works. But only 4MB/sec writing. So I rarely use that port, rather than my PC's USB or my NAS.

 

[FBlain]

Glad to see you guys are having an active discussion while I'm away ;-D

Answers below. Thanks!

Keep in mind that Workgroups and Homegroups are completely different items

You got me there....is there a way to set up workgroups on Windows 7 or 8 or set up homegroups on routers?

- In Windows Explorer, if you type \\192.168.0.1 (or whatever the IP of the router is), what happens?

I get the login screen for the router.

- is there a way you can review the SMB logs on the router?

Not that I can see.

Some other things to check

On the windows 8.1 box, have you checked the following;

1.) Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Local Security Policy.

2.) Enable - Microsoft Network Client: send unencrypted password to third party SMB servers.

Done.

3.) When asked for credentials in user name type: servername\userame.Do not just type the username only.

Haven't seen that yet.

Also, you might check out the Asus Subforums, there are quite a few very knowledgeable people that are more familiar with this router model, and of course, there's also the RMerlin builds to consider.

Are the risks of bricking the router substantial with the Merlin build? I actually like the router a lot aside from this one issue. I see everything on the bloody network aside from that drive.

 

[FBlain]

Fblain,

I have Windows 8.1 home, and I can map a network drive on RT-N66U. I haven't made any changes to Windows 8.1. View attachment 3971 Do you have any data on the drive? If not, put a couple files on there and see if you can map it then.
Maybe there's a bug and I just got lucky. I don't know.

Yep lots of stuff on it.

 

[sfx2000]

Glad to see you guys are having an active discussion while I'm away ;-D

Answers below. Thanks!



Are the risks of bricking the router substantial with the Merlin build? I actually like the router a lot aside from this one issue. I see everything on the bloody network aside from that drive.

I think the RMerlin builds are pretty safe compared to other third parties...

He's done a heroic, and sometimes thankless, job at sorting out the various issues with the Asus firmware...

 

[FBlain]

I think the RMerlin builds are pretty safe compared to other third parties...

He's done a heroic, and sometimes thankless, job at sorting out the various issues with the Asus firmware...

So I went ahead of flashed it with the RMerlin build. The USB drive is plugged in and mounted. Still not seeing it on Windows 8.1. ;-D

 

[sfx2000]

So I went ahead of flashed it with the RMerlin build. The USB drive is plugged in and mounted. Still not seeing it on Windows 8.1. ;-D

Man - we're sorry... the collective really did try to help out...

I think it's just the old Samba server... at the end of the day, the Router is a good router - it might not be the best choice for network shared storage - if you go on the Amazon, you'll find a couple of really good NAS boxes from QNAP and Synology for under 150USD, and there... better performance, and better support from the vendor.

Let your router be a router, it's not a NAS box

sfx

 

[FBlain]

Man - we're sorry... the collective really did try to help out...

I think it's just the old Samba server... at the end of the day, the Router is a good router - it might not be the best choice for network shared storage - if you go on the Amazon, you'll find a couple of really good NAS boxes from QNAP and Synology for under 150USD, and there... better performance, and better support from the vendor.

Let your router be a router, it's not a NAS box

sfx

Totally and thanks for trying...I'll take a look at the NAS boxes. After I see if Windows 10 fixes things.

 

[john9527]

For the 'current' Merlin releases see this post....
http://www.snbforums.com/threads/windows-7-samba.22218/#post-161111

EDIT: I looked again at the referenced thread, and I think Merlin had a typo (omission to set the value to 1)

nvram set smbd_enable_smb2=1
nvram commit
service restart_nasapps

Also, agree a router is not a NAS.....only good for occasional access....

 

[sfx2000]

For the 'current' Merlin releases see this post....
http://www.snbforums.com/threads/windows-7-samba.22218/#post-161111

Repeat after me - "A Router is not a NAS"...

Again, hoping to close this one out, as there is nothing further the NAS crowd can help out on with a Router offering limited NAS capabilities... this is an AssUS Router issue at the end of the day - it's their feature, and their bug to support.

It's not like we didn't try to help out.

 

[FBlain]

Repeat after me - "A Router is not a NAS"...

Again, hoping to close this one out, as there is nothing further the NAS crowd can help out on with a Router offering limited NAS capabilities... this is an AssUS Router issue at the end of the day - it's their feature, and their bug to support.

It's not like we didn't try to help out.

Absolutely close it....that horse is beaten and down.

 

[azazel1024]

Hey...stupid question, do you have network discovery turned ON on your Windows 8.1 machine? Seems like a minor thing that "of course it is turned on", but if it is in fact turned off for the network that the windows 8.1 machine thinks it is connected to, it cannot map a drive, it cannot see the drive, it will not response to pings, etc.

So, just out of giggles and flatulence, make sure network discovery is turned on. Make sure that the machine is on the same IP range as the router (192.168.0.x as an example).

 

[stevech]

and there's that <expletive> scheme in LANs with the "Master Browser". Source of lots of problems.