I got a LaCie external HD to connect to the Shareport on my DIR-655, installed shareport and the drive successfully on both computers, but I can't actually connect to it from either. The shareport utility indicates the drive as available, I press connect and it says "connecting to LaCie hard drive" then says "receiving status" and goes back to available. The drive will show up on My Computer when connected directly but not via the router.

Any experience with these drives on shareport? The manual doesn't address any such problems that I can see. Any suggestions appreciated.

I'm not familiar with this particular drive but does it require software to be installed on your system to access it? I've encountered a number of externals that require software for access and as such will not work unless they are directly connected to a system.

PG44, what firmware are you using? I know they had some problems with this feature (V1.21) so I recommend up to date firmware (V1.33)

I'm not sure if there is software required to operate it, as it installed everything directly when I first connected it. Hugh, I will check the firmware when I get home tonight. Hopefully it is something as simple as that.

If it is a no go, does anyone know if a simple USB thumb drive (i.e. 2gb stick) would work as an external shared drive in these situations? If so, I may just use something like that for the time being.

I did some more checking on this issue and the Dlink forums are full of unhappy customers unable to use shareport. I was on FW v 1.32 but upgraded to v1.33 which was released a few days ago. Since installing the new version I can access the hard drive from both computers. For other Dlink owners with the shareport problem, go to the support site and download the latest version. Doing the automatic check for firmware updates will not recognise it.

The new problem is now my connection speed on the netbook wireless is 65mb/s when it used to be 150mb/s. Still fast enough but why the drop?

If you haven't hooked it up to your PC first it wont work, you need to run the LaCie Setup Assistant software to format the drive.

Coop, I did install it first on the wired laptop which is our main computer, and the drive was formatted. I then installed the drive and associated drivers on the netbook which connects wirelessly. The problem appears to have been related to a known firmware issue with this and other Dlink routers and shareware beginning with the 1.3x versions. This latest version states it has fixed the DNS relay issue which some thought was connected. Anyway, time will tell if this fix lasts.

Glad the problem got resolved. Some folks around here had problems with Share Point when it was first released so hopefully the issues have finally been fixed.

I read all posting above.
I am under 2.01 firmware (just upgraded) and 3.1 Shareport (just upgraded). Still any USB I connect is not recognized under the shareport software (under windows vista). Though the USB LED appears on the router itself. Quite frustrating. :(

Can any help further? Thanks.

Pierre

I was having similar issues... heres what I did to fix my problems.

First, it wasn't recognizing my ext hard drive. To resolve this, I told Shareport exactly what my wireless router's IP was. Do this by accessing the options, and then selecting the middle tab, Search for Device Servers. Enter in your router's IP address there. Shareport should pick up the device now.

Secondly, I was having problems actually connecting to the device. It'd say it was available, double clicking on it would make it try to connect, but eventually it would come straight back to the 'available' state. I saw during the install it said to disable or add Shareport to the windows firewall, so i disabled it completely just to see if i could connect. That worked.

All in all, I can connect now because I told Shareport where my USB device was and then I told my computer to allow that device to connect through the firewall.

Good Luck!