Sharing your DVD or Blu-ray Drive across your home network

Question

1. Open Windows Explorer on the PC that has the optical drive.
2. Locate the drive, right-click it, and select Properties from the context menu.
3. Switch to the sharing tab in the properties window.
4. Click on the advanced sharing button.
5. Check "Share this folder".
6. Type a descriptive name under "Share name", e.g. DVD Drive.
7. The remaining settings are all optional. You can limit the number of simultaneous users, add comments, or define permissions or caching in detail. It is usually not required to make any changes here.
8. Click ok.

Head over to the computer that you want to access the DVD drive on. Open Windows Explorer, and there the network listing. you should see the new shared folder here.

it's not coming up on the target computer ?????

Answer 1

If the shared DVD or Blu-ray drive is not appearing on the target computer, there are a few troubleshooting steps you can follow:

1. Check Network Discovery: Ensure that network discovery is turned on for both computers. This setting allows devices to see each other on the network. You can enable it by going to the Network and Sharing Center and selecting Change advanced sharing settings. Make sure Turn on network discovery is checked.
2. Verify Sharing Settings: Double-check the sharing settings on the computer with the optical drive. Ensure that you have correctly followed the steps to share the drive and that it is indeed shared.
3. Firewall Settings: Sometimes, firewall settings can block access to shared resources. Ensure that the firewall on both computers allows file and printer sharing.
4. Check Permissions: Make sure that the permissions for the shared drive allow access to the user account you are using on the target computer. You may need to adjust the permissions in the Sharing tab of the drive properties.
5. Access via Network Path: Instead of browsing through Windows Explorer, try accessing the shared drive directly by typing the network path in the address bar (e.g., \ComputerName\ShareName). Replace ComputerName with the name of the computer sharing the drive and ShareName with the name you assigned to the share.
6. Restart Both Computers: Sometimes, simply restarting both the host and target computers can resolve connectivity issues.

By following these steps, you should be able to troubleshoot the issue of the shared DVD or Blu-ray drive not appearing on the target computer.