For over two years I have been watching video files stored on external HDs that are attached via USB to my laptop, which is wired to my network. No problems. I simply set the drive to be shared on the network and it appears in network shares when I select my laptop.
But suddenly, and without having done anything new, that drive stopped appearing. It’s on the network still. I can access it from another computer in the house. It even shows up under media servers on the WDTV. But it will not show up in network shares. I can see my laptop and the user folder, and I can view videos that have been added to the shared folder there, but the entire HD is inaccessible.
This is really annoying and I can’t figure out how to fix it. To make things worse i spoke to customer support and while the first person tried to help me, the second claimed that the WDTV is and always has been unable to play files that are not in the networked computer’s shared folder. I found this shocking, since I had been doing it for years, and that’s why I even bought the thing in the first place.
So: what might have gone wrong? Or, is it true that my former ability to play files from an external HD attached to my networked laptop was just a fluke, and I won’t be able to repeat it? If so, is this also true of the newer models of the device?