Connecting to a USB Drive in the Router from Windows 10

[#1]

Hi.... I'm really struggling with an issue, so hoping somebody can give me some pointers as to where to go on this! I've been trying everything I can think of for days 😞

I've plugged a FAT32 USB drive into my Technicolor Router (TG582n). But my problem is that I just cannot access it from my Windows 10 Home Edition PC. I type in the IP address (\\192.168.1.253) into Windows Explorer, but I always get the following error:

The remote device or resource won't accept the connection. The device or resource (192.168.1.253) is not set up to accept connections on the port "The file and printer sharing (SMB)".

But here's the really odd thing. I also have a work computer running an older version of Windows 10 Enterprise edition. And this connects absolutely fine to the USB drive in the router. Everything works as it should and I can access the files on it. And I can also connect fine from my Android phone using a network browser. So the router/USB setup seems correct.

So is there something in the latest versions of Windows that could be stopping this? Is there some process I could be starting or stopping in Windows? What is the SMB thing - is that something that has changed recently in Windows?

[#2]

Have you installed SMB 1.0 client, as it is disabled by default in 'new' installs of Windows 10 ?

[#3]

Thanks, yes, I have those all boxes ticked (including the server one).

[#4]

Hi

Had a silmilar problem on a new PC what I had to do was go to my computer and do a  map network drive to the USB giving it the drive letter, then adding the address that I can access it from the other PC.

Cheers 

[#5]

No, unfortunately mapping the drive doesn't work either on the Windows Home PC. It's fine on the Windows Enterprise PC (which is running a version of Windows which is 18 months old). But it's the Home PC I really need it on!

[#6 · Accepted solution]

I've solved this, and since it was not a solution I found on any forum, I thought I'd post it here in case it works for somebody else. It turns out the problem occurred when I was signed into my PC with a Microsoft account. When I switched to using a local account, I was able to connect to my drive without an issue. Weird but there you are...

[#7]

After a lot of struggling I found a reference to the USB device on the hub as "\\Pnhub1\usb1"

Entering this in the input line in File Explorer brings up the contents of the USB

When displaying the USB data left button drag the folder icon on the left of the input field to the desktop and you have a shortcut.

Right click on "Network" in the list on the left of the File Explorer window and select "Map Network Drive".  Enter "\\Pnhub1\usb1" in the Folder field of the window and select your driver.

Voila, the USB is mapped to a drive.

Windows 64 Home