Network help..am I being too ambitious with what a mac can do?

Hi Guys, I am a windows convert now using an imac and a mac book pro.

This is what i am trying to achieve:

1.I want my imac to recognise my macbook pro and if I need, to be able to add files/folders to it, to take files/folders from it

2.I want my macbook pro to also recognise my imac on a network, and again, add/remove/transfer files between imac/macbook pro

3.I'd like any external hard drives attached to my imac , and or printer to be recognised by my macbook pro, again also need to transfer files and folders


This is what has happened so far after looking through web articles etc:

1.My macbook pro sees my imac and doesn't allow me any access to files and folders

2.My macbook pro sees only 1 external hard drive and fully allows me to transfer and exchange files beween my mbp and the external drive

3.My imac simply doesn't recognise my macbook pro.

Are my network requirements too ambitious for a mac system to do or am I ( most likely) doing something hopelessly wrong?

I have poured over article after article online to get this far and finding this experience incredibly frustrating as i am unsure if it is my poor mac/network skills that are preventing me from doing this or if it is the mac system that is incapable of doing what i want :-(

all replies gratefully accepted, even the obvious sarcastic ones!

I have looked online for help before posting this.

I am using mac osx 10.6.5 on both imac and mbp

There is something wrong somewhere. I do everything you want to do and even between Windows and Mac systems.

Can you tell us how you have everything hooked up? In System Preferences/Sharing do you have File Sharing enabled for starters?

Well to start, do you have file sharing enabled on both the machines?

edit: beaten to it by mere seconds =|

Ill take a little stab at sharing the 2 machines.

I have a old iMac and a new MBP and they are both on my Home wireless network. I can get onto the web with both of them.
Now i can swap files between them both over this net work.
All i did was to set them both up in System Preferences>Sharing



And then comes up under Sharing

Looking at the image this is what is checked for me to see the iMac on my network

Seeing the HDD on the network, i havnt tried that yet to be able to help

dtravis7 said:

There is something wrong somewhere. I do everything you want to do and even between Windows and Mac systems.

Can you tell us how you have everything hooked up? In System Preferences/Sharing do you have File Sharing enabled for starters?

Click to expand...

Hi, I have file sharing and printer sharing turned ' on' on both machines, and for the purpose of trying to get this to work, set 'read and write' to all users

Are both computers connected to a router? Have you clicked on Options in File Sharing? Is AFP checked?

In Security is the Firewall enabled? What settings are selected in the Firewall?

dtravis7 said:

Are both computers connected to a router? Have you clicked on Options in File Sharing? Is AFP checked?

In Security is the Firewall enabled? What settings are selected in the Firewall?

Click to expand...

both computers access the internet via a wireless router.

when i purchased the mac system the guys in the apple store told me not to worry about anti virus or firewall software as macs are not affected.

I do not know if the mac os has a 'default' firewall or not. I know i have not purchased and installed any 3rd party software.

'fire sharing' and AFP are both checked

Did you check the Sharing and Options and be sure AFP is checked?

The OSX Firewall is in System Preferences, Security and the Firewall Tab.

Making progress...

Ok, I can now get BOTH the imac and the mac book pro to recognise each other in the 'shared' folder and transfer files.

However, despite turning on 'share' options, none of the external drives attached to my desk top imac are recognised by my mac book pro. ALL sharing settings are ON an and I have set unrestricted read/write access to all users.

getting my mbp to recognise the external drives would be a huge win for me....still not sure what more i can do, but at least the imac and mbp are talking. not ideal at all as i really liked the idea of sharing files that are on the external drives attached to the imac from my mac book pro :-(

In Sharing, Hit the + under Shared Folders. When the Finder comes up, click on the external drive and add it to the shared list. That should work for you. In Snow Leopard now and I have all my external drives shared that way.

dtravis7 said:

In Sharing, Hit the + under Shared Folders. When the Finder comes up, click on the external drive and add it to the shared list. That should work for you. In Snow Leopard now and I have all my external drives shared that way.

Click to expand...

hi, and thanks so much for your continued help. i have done exactly as you have suggested above,with all permissions etc turned on but my macbook pro still won't recognise any external drives under 'shared':-(
i have tripled checked the drives are turned on and functioning.

I used to use a little utility called SharePoints but I am pretty sure it's not on this new iMac I just got. What SharePoints did was enable sharing of external drives. I will check a few things and get back to you.

the problem I am having is where the drives are under 'shared' folders there is a box next to it called' users', and the '+' and '-' keys are greyed out, so i cant add users to it :-( everything is enabled etc.

bluefox9er said:

the problem I am having is where the drives are under 'shared' folders there is a box next to it called' users', and the '+' and '-' keys are greyed out, so i cant add users to it :-( everything is enabled etc.

Click to expand...

They are only usually greyed out if the Authentication Lock lower left is locked. Make sure that is unlocked via Admin Password

TattooedMac said:

They are only usually greyed out if the Authentication Lock lower left is locked. Make sure that is unlocked via Admin Password

Click to expand...

Thanks for posting that. I had a phone call then forgot to mention that.

TattooedMac said:

They are only usually greyed out if the Authentication Lock lower left is locked. Make sure that is unlocked via Admin Password

Click to expand...

Lol..yep, believe it or not, It was unlocked via admin password, and still greyed out. Im just going to have to live without this 'feature' of owning a mac, its far too frustrating....even more so when I was told that such a set up would be simple to set up and easy to run.

these external disks were formatted to read both windows and mac os...I am guessing this might be the issue, but can't see why, as the imac reads them just fine.

You have the externals formatted in FAT32 then? It still should work. I will try a FAT32 drive when I get back home later and get back to you.

I have added a WD passport drive formatted to Mac OS X Journaled and it shows up fine on my macbook pro when it is attached to my iMac.

I believe that formatting drives to work with both windows and macs seems to be the issue :-(

bluefox9er said:

I have added a WD passport drive formatted to Mac OS X Journaled and it shows up fine on my macbook pro when it is attached to my iMac.

I believe that formatting drives to work with both windows and macs seems to be the issue :-(

Click to expand...

Sorry I have not had to time to back up an external and format it FAT32 to test it. Will do it ASAP and get back to you.