Networking a remote PC to a remote Mac. Or sharing a "network" drive between them?

I have read blog after blog to try to find a simple solution to my problem, with no luck.
I have two computers. 1 is a Macbook Pro Retina with paralelled-Window 7 access. The other is a Windows 7 PC. The two computers are remote. ie one is on a home network in 1 state, the other is on a home network in another state.
The PC is running a software program that has a large data file with sensitive material. I want my Mac to be able to share this data file. I am told I need to set up a network connection between the two. I have tried doing a Microsoft VPN connection through the paralleled-Windows 7 mac and the Windows 7 PC. I am setting up the network to have the PC act as the server, thereby creating a network connection directly to the PC's IP address. I receive several different errors for the network tunneling when trying to connect. I believe this is because both computers are running on home networks, rather than one running on a secured work network. I read every blog out there about resolving these error messages I get, but again no luck.
Is there an easier way to resolve my problem? Can the data file be stored on some sort of cloud server that would allow constant updating. For instance, we may both be in the software at the exact same time on our remote computers, but we need whatever I save on my mac to be accessible immediately to the PC.
If anyone has any VPN software suggestions, cloud storage suggestions, or input on the method I have already tried, please help!
Thank you!

Big Steveo wrote:
I'm in the market for the AirPort Extreme and want to add an external hard drive to share between my MacBookPro 2.4 and my Windows Vista system. I know that the Mac OS can read/write to a FAT32 file system (and FAT32 only works on a partition smaller than 32GB)
Not quite accurate.
Microsoft built in a limitation to XP (and Vista) which means that XP and Vista can only format a 32GB FAT32 partition and no bigger. This is to force you to use NTFS.
OS X and other third party tools (even Windows 98) can quite easily create much larger FAT32 partitions, I have one which is 120GB for example.
Windows cant even read the Mac OS.
MacDrive will allow you to read Mac formatted disks on a Windows PC.
Is there a file system out there that I can use on an external drive so that both windows and mac can read/write to?
Having said all I have said, you can use HFS on the USB drive connected to the Airport Extreme and both Windows PCs and Macs will be able to write to it, as it is the Airport which does the writing not the wireless clients.
However if you want to share the drive and connect it direct at times to the computers then FAT32 would be a better choice.
Just use OS X to do it, use disk utility and use the MS-DOS format (which is FAT32).
iFelix

Similar Messages

How do I create a shared network drive between a remote Mac and a remote PC?

I have read blog after blog to try to find a simple solution to my problem, with no luck.
I have two computers. 1 is a Macbook Pro Retina with paralelled-Window 7 access. The other is a Windows 7 PC. The two computers are remote. ie one is on a home network in 1 state, the other is on a home network in another state.
The PC is running a software program that has a large data file with sensitive material. I want my Mac to be able to share this data file. I am told I need to set up a network connection between the two. I have tried doing a Microsoft VPN connection through the paralleled-Windows 7 mac and the Windows 7 PC. I am setting up the network to have the PC act as the server, thereby creating a network connection directly to the PC's IP address. I receive several different errors for the network tunneling when trying to connect. I believe this is because both computers are running on home networks, rather than one running on a secured work network. I read every blog out there about resolving these error messages I get, but again no luck.
Is there an easier way to resolve my problem? Can the data file be stored on some sort of cloud server that would allow constant updating. For instance, we may both be in the software at the exact same time on our remote computers, but we need whatever I save on my mac to be accessible immediately to the PC.
If anyone has any VPN software suggestions, cloud storage suggestions, or input on the method I have already tried, please help!
Thank you!

I don't know if this will work for you or not but you might want to consider something like TeamViewer. Its a great program that can not only be used to remote control any pc or mac but you can also transfer files as well. Here is the link for more information.
http://www.teamviewer.com/en/index.aspx
Of course someone will have to be at the site to install it the first time and then it can be used remotely.

Sharing external FireWire drive between two Mac Pros

I know that sharing an external FireWire drive between two machines (i.e. both connected at the same time) is a very bad things as both will assume that they have exclusive write access to the drive and quite quickly write over what the other machine has just written.
Would it be possible though to mount the drive as read-only on the first machine and in read-write mode on the second? Would this preserve integrity as the second machine would in fact have exclusive write access or would other problems arise?
Thanks for any responses to a stupid question!
Peter

Mmm, Connect the drive to the private secure network Mac. Connect the two Macs by FireWire and create a network over the firewire connection, configure it to use class C addresses, ie. 169.x.x.x manually and then share the firewire drive to the other Mac (also on a class C network address over firewire).
Both macs will still have their own ethernet network addresses and each network will not be visible from the "other" network (unless you choose to share your internet connection over firewire).
The only caveat here is that the firewire drive will be visible to every other Mac on the secure network that you allow to connect to it (which is why I chose that one, rather than the public Mac). Or can you restrict sharing to only one network ..... didn't think so.

Sharing external hard drive between PowerMac and Mac Pro

I have a western digital external hard drive connected to a PowerMac and one connected to a Mac Pro. The PowerMac can see the Mac Pro external, but not vise versa. Can someone tell me what could possibly be wrong? Both computers have the sharing setup and we have partitioned the hard drives.
Thanks

I'm assuming that you have Leopard on both Macs? When you say that you "see" the Mac Pro's external drive, are you seeing it in the sidebar? And if so is that showing up as the Mac Pro, or as the drive? It seems to me that if you're seeing the one, then what you've done is to "connect as" with the user login, but haven't yet done that with the MacPro to the PowerMac. Have you from the PowerMac clicked Add at the bottom of the User's list to add the right username, or clicked New Person to enter a name and password?

Intel Macs & G5s: Problems when moving projects between them

An earlier post* suggesting complete compatibility between the latest FCP in a G5 and in an Intel Mac may be in error.
We are experiencing continuing crashes using our Intel Mac when we work on projects that were originally either imported or partially rendered in the G5.
It has gotten to the point where we feel we must keep projects completely isolated from each other: Either it is a "G5 project" or it is an "Intel Mac" project. Moving projects back and forth between the two leads to problems such as:
The Intel Mac does not recognize any renders done in the G5...
The Intel Mac crashes when rendering 'G5' projects...
The Intel mac crashes when compressor goes to work to export sequences to mpeg...
The G5 works fine with Intel Mac-originated material: It is only in the Intel Mac where we have these problems.
Both systems are up-to-the minute on their OS, security updates, and FCP versions. We are using variously 720p/30 from the JVC GY-100UA and 1080i/30 from the Sony Z1U.
Our questions are:
Is anyone else experiencing similar problems moving projects between a G5 and an Intel Mac?
Is anyone moving projects between the two platforms and experiencing NO problems at all? That information would be just as valuable, and very welcome.
Apple FCP development team: Is our experience unique or have you had other reports like this? Any idea what could be causing our problems -- and what we can do to fix them?
* http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3604812&#3604812
Intel MacPro Tower, 3gHz, 8mb Mac OS X (10.4.8) Also a G5 Tower, 2x2.5ghz, single core

Scott,
Welcome to the discussions!
I have had no problems moving my G5 projects over to my MP.
You can not move render files between machines.
When you changed systems, did you use Migration Assistant to transfer your files over to your new Mac Pro? You might need to install from the disks in order to achieve native Intel performance. See if you installed Final Cut 5.1 on your G5 then it installed the PPC code... if you put that drive into your Mac Pro or used Migration Assistant to move the app over it is still the PPC code... When you install from the installation disk, Installer determines what system you are installing on (PPC or Intel) and that's what it installs. This goes for all of your "Universal Binary" apps...
In the System Profiler app. under Software/Applications
Final Cut Pro "kind" should be Universal on your MP.
The FCP development team do not read these posts, only users do.

Why are sparsebundles used when remote Macs backup to my external drive?

At one time I was moving my external G-Drive from my iMac to Macbook so that both computers could use Time Machine to backup. Now I figured out that my MacBook can "see" the drive when it's connected to my iMac and backup to it. The strange thing is, now the Macbook saves its data as a sparsebundle, instead of creating a folder with the various backups like it once did. Is this a good thing? Will it no longer create multiple backups for each week? What if I needed a file in the backup from two weeks ago?
Please help.
Thank you.

polishedstaple wrote:
What if I needed a file in the backup from two weeks ago?
When the drive is connected directly, the "Star Wars" display won't see a sparse bundle. To view the backups in such a case, you'll have to manually mount the sparse bundle (by double-clicking it via the Finder), and use the +*Browse . . .+* option, per #17 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
The way you were backing-up, Time Machine put the backups for both Macs in the Backups.backupdb folder. To view those backups, you'll have to connect the drive directly.
Note that when Time Machine runs out of room for new backups of the MacBook, it won't delete the oldest backups of it from the Backups.backupdb folder. So at some point you'll need to delete the old backups from that set manually. See #12 in the FAQ.

Sharing external hard drive between 2 mac's

I have all my music on an external hard drive. I have ratings, playlists, etc. and I've been using it with my desktop G4.
I bought a Powerbook and would like to use the hard drive with the iTunes on my powerbook. How do I share the library between 2 macs?
Thanks,
Jon

You can manually add the music files on the external drive to your powerbook's itunes by using File->Add to library but that won't bring over playlists, ratings or playcounts.
This "metadata" is in a file called "iTunes Library" on your desktop in Music/iTunes. To bring over that "metadata" you can try this:
1) Close iTunes on both machines.
2) Copy the "iTunes Library" from the desktop and put in in the same place on the powerbook.
3) Now open iTunes on the powerbook.
This will definitely work if the external drive is attached directly to the powerbook. I haven't tried your type of scenario, where you will access the external drive through the network to get to the desktop and then the external drive. But I think I've seen other here say this works.
If it doesn't work, ie it put exclamation marks next to tracks to indicate it can't find htem, then go into the preferences (Advanced, general) and set the music folder location to the external drive (through the network, through the desktop). This should make it find the music.
You'll also want to make sure "Copy files to the music folder" is ON so that any music you add through the powerbook is copied to the external drive. (If that's what you want. You may chose not to do this, to have some music stay on the local harddrive so you have acess to it when you're not at home).

What format should I made a shared external hard drive between Mac and bootcamp?

We have a small office running both macs and windows 7 on macs in bootcamp.
Currently we have 1 "master computer" which is a mac that stores all the data formatted in mac os extended (journaled). But we are always having rights issues with that and if that users machine is off, or having network problems we loose access.
The proposal is to get a new router with USB port and have a networked disk on where all the shared files are stored. The question is, what should the disk be formatted to?
As I have said the mac machines run bootcamp with 1 employee perminantly on windows 7. His hard drive is NTSC. As a side note I don't understand How can he open the networked shared files from the master mac!?
Ideally we want to search the folder for its contents from both mac and PC and I think this won't be possible if it is FAT32 formatted.
1 machine is the master mac
another is runs both mac and boot camp occasionaly.
3rd machine runs bootcamp constantly.
all macs are Lion 10.7.5
all bootcamp is windows 7.
we are in the uk
router is also our internet connection
we don't want an expensive server if we can help it.
Suggestions?

Fat32
Extfat or fat16bit is just poor Mans fat32 where you get more then 8 chars filenames but not support for large volumens
And msdos is fat8 which is useles

Sharing a hard drive between two Macs with Time Machine

can I use the same hard drive to back up two different Macs with Time machine? I'm ok with hot swapping the cables.
Message was edited by: Brian Monson

Brian Monson wrote:
can I use the same hard drive to back up two different Macs with Time machine? I'm ok with hot swapping the cables.
Yes, but TM, Leopard and external drives are not OK with hot-swapping. Never unplug a drive without properly ejecting it first.
Each computer will have it's own backup folder on the drive and each computer will recognize its own backup folder. There is no limit other than HD space on how many computers can be backed up on an external drive.

Error Downloading Music to Network Drive

I've moved my Music Library to a networked drive (NTFS) on a Windows XP system. The workstation that I'm running iTunes on is also Windows XP. Since then I cannot download purchased MUSIC (haven't tried videos yet). After initiating download via either starting up iTunes or using Check for Purchased Music Option, iTunes tries to do the download for each of the pending items After i's been thru all that are qued up, I get message that "There was an error downloading your purchased music. The disk could not be read or written to." I assume this applies to the networked drive which is accessible and readable with no problems (from/to any other program). Also, all INFO pointers in iTunes music listings confirm that songs are all stored on networked drive as intended and are accessible with no problem/errors. I also note that Preference Settings (Advanced) point to the appropriate Networked drive and folder (...\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music) and that the "Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized" is checked. "Copy Files o iTunes Music folder when adding to library" isn't checked but behavior is same even if it is. Also, for what ever it maybe worth noting, attempts to Consolidate Library result in message "Copying Music Failed. The disk could not be read from or written to." I assume again that this is refers to the networked drive which, again, is accessible with no problems to any other programs to include iTunes itself which can access movies and/or songs from the networked drive, playing them wihout error even while these messages are being displayed during these other operations.
So, as it stands now, I have purchased music that I cannot download by any method that I try. The Apple Store recognizes that it is purchased and offers to download it whenever I start iTunes But I continue to receive the same error described above. In the iTunes Music Folder on the networked drive there is a folder, among the artist folders, named "Download" that contains pointers to the items that I've purchased but cannot download. I should also note that all of these attempts are being done with iTunes on the client workstation w/o the iPod being connected which I didn't think would matter. I've read most of what I can find about this error and can seem to find problem like mine(most others seem to be with video). Also, I'm sure that I followed correct procedure in moving my iTunes Library from local machine (where I was running out of space) to Networked drive. Local machine still contains the iTunes Music Library xml file, the iTunes Libary Database file, and an empty iTunes Music folder all in the appropriate (original) location of ...My Documents\My Music\iTunes folder.
I'd appreciate any suggestions as I've worked on this for several days and still cannot get to my purchased music.
Thanks in advance for advice / help.
HEC1152
Generic PC Windows XP Pro

Got a similar issue going on my network:
So far, two users have tried purchasing videos and music from the iTunes music store. Both got the failed download error and told to try again with the "Check for Purchased Music" command.
Both running Windows XP Pro bound to an Active Directory domain.
Both have the My Documents folder redirected to their personal directory on the network (\\server\users\username).
By default, iTunes stored its files in \\server\users\username\My Music\iTunes.
Since I don't want my users filling up my file server with MP3s, I first had the user move the iTunes Music folder to their local machine using iTunes Preferences (Advanced -> General). But after that change, the download error went away. ! The Library file and XML file are still stored in My Music\iTunes on the network.
I found your post while trying to figure out what's going on. Tried to reproduce the issue on a test machine by downloading the Free Download of the Week. But it downloads just fine. Nuts...
17 iMac G4 800 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

HT201250 Hello i am using TimeMachine to back-up entire Mac image (data + system) on an usb-local drive. I would like (on top of it) add a specific plan to back up some files on a remote network drive. Does TimeMachine support multiple back-up plans ? How

Hello i am using TimeMachine to back-up entire Mac image (data + system) on an usb-local drive. I would like (on top of it) add a specific plan to back up some files on a remote network drive. Does TimeMachine support multiple back-up plans ? How ?

Time Machine is capable of backing up to multiple locations, and can be used to back up to both a local hard drive and a networked drive (provided that that drive is in or connected to a Time Capsule or another Mac that is sharing it over the network). The catch, though, is that you can't specify different things to back up to different destinations. Whatever you exclude from Time Machine backups is excluded from ALL backups, and whatever is included is included on all.
So, get a large enough drive that you can back up everything you want in all locations, or use something else for maintaining the network backup.
More information on these topics can be found here:
How do I set up Time Machine to a shared drive on another Mac?
How do I set up Time Machine to a Time Capsule or Airport Extreme?
"Rotating" Time Machine backup disks

How can i remotely connect to my mac without sharing my screen

Hi,
I have a Mac at work to which I occasionally connect from another Mac at home. Now I would love to export the applications similar to Linux where I just set the display to another device. Alternatively, I would also use screen sharing if the remote Mac's screen would not turn on and invite everybody around to follow my work (i.e. the workstation should either stay locked, similar to when connecting to a Window machine with MS Remote Desktop) or it should remain blank.
I am using the latest version of Snow Leopard on all machines.
Thanks for any suggestions,
equinox

TO JAISEN.....
not necessarily, every "computing" device (imac, TC, AEBS, pc) has its own separate set of ports. There is a way to achieve what your trying to do as I'm trying to accomplish the same thing, i have not fully gotten it working yet as i'm restricted to my network so any changes i do, i cant test till i go back to work and use their pc. So let me figure out my way and if i get it working ill tell you how i did it (looking for an alternative to mobile me). But back to your question. I'm going to explain the config settings in airport NAT forwarding. Just remember you imac has to have a static IP.
public udp port: "any port you want to use"- 3032
public tcp port: "same port as above" - 3032
private IP address: "the satic IP of you iMac" - 10.0.1.???
private udp and private tcp: 548
that would be equivalent to
"your-external-ip":3032
the way this works is that you router will take those port (3032) and know that you want to access the the port 548 on your imac ( the private ip),, basically the port 3032 is a substitute for port 548 on you imac.
I hope that helped, maybe you can help me.
I'm trying to access my airdisks remotely. im using that free dns thing, i thing its called dynDNS, and it works %100 as I use it to remote monitor my torrent downloads (transmission with clutch), so at work if i go to my server , i can access the remote torrenting easy because it works through the web browser, but i dont get how to access my airdisks. what do i need to do in windows to access is what im asking???
if you dont mind, i could email you my web address ( im kinda cautious of posting it) and maybe you can test it for me. Do you have a windows pc??

Back To My Mac not waking remote mac in Mountain Lion iCloud

Back To My Mac will not connect to a remote mac in Mountain Lion unless that mac is awake. I have the "Wake for network access" button checked. Once I have somebody touch a keyboard to wake up the remote mac I can share screens, and share files, but this is obviously a problem if nobody is around to wake up the remote machine. I have screen sharing and file sharing checked, and I'm allowing access to the hard drive to myself as a user. This was not a problem in Mobile Me, but seems to be a problem in iCloud.
Additionally, if I manually type in the the WAN IP address for the remote mac, it will connect to it's associated Time Capsule, but will not connect to the mac itself. All macs are 10.8.1.
Any ideas what's going on?

Hi Dan97103!
I have an article here for you that can help you troubleshoot this issue with your Back to My Mac functionality:
OS X: Using and troubleshooting Back to My Mac with your iCloud account
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4907
Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities. Have a good one!
-Braden

Linking two remote Macs

I have a basic question about linking two remote Macs over the internet. Here's the situation...
I live in Maryland and my brother in South Carolina. We would like to be able to exchange large files easily. I've managed to do this using sftp from the terminal, but what I would really love is if I could get his remote disk to show up as a folder on my desktop (in the Finder).
Is there a way to do this (that isn't too expensive)?
Eric

Is there a way to do this (that isn't too expensive)?
This method is free, I am assuming that as you have been using sftp your also familiar with SSH.
You can mount an afp volume over the internet through an SSH tunnel.
Turn on file sharing on the remote mac. Then you can ssh into it using a listening port. here is the syntax
ssh user@server -L 5548:127.0.0.1:548
Then once the tunnel is connected you choose from your finder 'command +k' amd in the connect to server window use
afp://localhost:5548
This will then prompt you to login and then the sharepoint will mount on your desktop as if it were a local volume.
The only issue you have is that the finder can become very slow and unresponsive when using network volumes over low bandwidth.

HT5422 How to get an better screen-update? The view on the remote Mac is nearly static.

How to get an better screen-update? The view on the remote Mac is nearly static.

You can try reducing the bit depth of the screen image via the slider in the upper-right of the Control window. If that doesn't help, you may just not have a sufficiently fast network connection to correctly handle the data transfer necessary. This is often the case if you're connecting across the Internet. What is your network speed between the administration system and the client?
Regards.

Networking a remote PC to a remote Mac. Or sharing a "network" drive between them?

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