How to reliably share files and folders between Windows 10 PCs

Paul Black said:

Hello @RickC,

Just a quick question please.

I have BT fibre with a Smart Hub 2. I also have a 3TB WD External HDD. I wanted to make this available to my Desktop & Laptop last year via the USB Port on the back of the Router, but I was unable to get it to work. I even tried with a USB. I phoned BT and they said that it was NOT possible, but I didn't have a lot of confidence in the Teckie I spoke to. Are you saying that there is a way to achieve this please?

Hi Paul,

The USB port in the BT Smart Hub 2 appeared to work fine for people attaching HDDs before an automatic firmware update in ~2019. Apparently you needed to re-enable the SMB1 feature in Windows 10 but - not being a BT subscriber - I'm afraid I have no idea whether the comments in this BT support post are valid.

However, according to BT, the Smart Hub 2's USB port can now only be used for charging phones and tablets... a massive backwards step IMO, deliberately engineered by BT.

Sorry I can't help further.

Paul Black said:

Thanks @RickC, I will have a look at that Thread.

I just enabled SMB and it performed some updates prior to, and during a Restart.

Here's the thing... from what I read, BT appears to have deliberately disabled what used to be a USB port configured for data communication and downgraded it to a USB charging port only. So, whilst some users reported re-enabling SMB1 worked for them, I suspect it was a short-term thing before BT turned off the port's data communication capabilities.

If so then the only way around this that I know of is to piggy-back another router (with data-enabled USB port) to the BT Smart Hub 2.

(There should be lots of suitable 3rd-party routers available as people upgrade to the latest and greatest for better Wi-Fi coverage/Gigabit ethernet speeds).

Just make sure you turn DHCP off in any piggy-back router you attach.

Hope this helps...

Paul Black said:

Hello @RickC,



That is exactly what the Teckie said.



I still have a couple of old BT Hubs, so I will investigate this further to see if I can achieve this with one of them.

Thanks.

EDIT:-

I have just looked at my old Routers and I have the following with a USB Port . . .

Home Hub 3 - Type A
Home Hub 5 - Type B
Smart Hub - Type A - I will have to look for the Power Supply though [ I think it was faulty ].

Do you think any of these would work for the 'Piggy Backing' please ?

I've never been a BT subscriber so the following is based on Google searches, not personal experience:

BT Home Hub 3 - Probably, according to this YouTube How to Connect a USB Mass Storage Device to a BT Home Hub 3 video.

This post shows the default network address is \\192.168.1.254\usb1 and the USB device should be formatted as FAT32, not NTFS.

Hope this helps...

(ROFL - We discussed this in March. I had forgotten.)

Paul Black said:

Hello @RickC,



Thanks.

Unfortunately my 3TB WD External Hard Drive is formatted as NTFS.

This will be my project for this week.

Perhaps check... test a USB stick formatted as FAT32. If it's not recognised in your BT Smart Hub 2's USB port then perhaps give up trying further as it most likely means BT has now re-configured the port as 'charging' only. (Who on earth charges phones or tablets via their router?)

I had the same issue with my daughter's ancient Sony flatscreen TV. I converted all the S-VHS video camera content of her growing up to MP4 files... but she couldn't view them on a USB stick connected to her TV.

Once I reformatted the USB stick to FAT32 she could see all of them, except the ones I couldn't copy back because they were larger in size than FAT32 allows.

PS - I have a similar issue with my old Virgin Media router (can't be bothered to swap as there's no benefit to me and VM tie the swap in to a new contract... no thank you very much!) I just permanently attached an old Acer Aspire One netbook (configured to keep working with the lid closed) and plugged my media drive into one of its USB ports. What I like about the netbook is that it's apparently fanless... totally silent. I clean installed it, stripped it down and all it does it run Plex Media Server in LAN mode. I tested if first with an SDHC card of movies first before replacing that with an HDD. The good thing is that it takes increasing HDD capacity in its stride rather than the capacity restrictions of dedicated media players. The only issue is its 2GB RAM limit so I can't go above 720p. I'm waiting for 8GB Raspberry Pi 4's to come back into stock so I can configure a personalised media player with greater capability.

Paul Black said:

I will try this out tomorrow with the Home Hub 3 - Type A and a USB formatted as FAT32. If that works, I have just looked and found a NEW 2 TB High Speed USB 2.0 for £11.99 from a company based in the UK.

Umm... that's a VERY good price. Care to share URL?

Off-topic - Looking forward yesterday to Amazon delivering 10TB 'Seagate Expansion Desktop' external USB drive for £180.73 (normally well over £220).



Turned up without UK adapter and the HDD case rattled with unidentified loose stuff inside. Rejected and refund requested.