Tech Support- Herm, Kelly, Anyone..lol

[David]

OK, I looking for help from those who know about network drives.

I just got a new 750 gig external hard drive and connected it to my router (E4200) so my wife and I could back up our computers/files to a shared drive. I have that all set up and it is doing fine.

BUT I noticed that that when I transfer over a folder containing music, some extra files pop up on the network drive such as desktop configuration file and a thumbs file. They show up in every folder. So it is annoying. WHY?

untitled.JPG

I am running XP Pro on my computer and on my wife's is Windows 7.

How can I prevent this?

[Hermskii]

You have your view settings set to show you hidden system files.

Go to:
My computer where it shows you all of your drives and such.
On the upper left side of the screen select:
Organize
Folder and search options
View tab
Under the "Hidden Files and folders" select the radius for "Don't show hidden files, folders or drives"
Un-check "Hide extensions for know file types"
put a check in the box for "Hide protected operating system files"

Let us know how that works for you.

[David]

That is what I first thought, but I wnet through it and it was mostly set up the way your recommended. The only thing I did was to

Un-check "Hide extensions for know file types"

Here is the folder's properties.

folder properties.JPG

[David]

I tried to connecting the external drive to my computer and transfered files over and it did not do the same thing, it did not show/create those config files or thumb files . Only when I connected plugged it in as a network drive did those files show up????

I am thinking that instead of using the drive as a network drive, I will just plug it into the computer I want to back up at that moment and transfer data over and then store the drive until it is needed. This way it avoids the creation of those config and thumbs files in every folder and sub folder.

[Kelly]

Just saw this David, apologies.

In case you haven't sorted this out then here's your answer: When plugging a drive directly to the router it forces the router to treat the drive like a new client in order for it to be properly accessed. It has to be assigned a mac address, a local IP, etc. This means the drive has to be controlled too by software (an operating system) and since the drive is without one it is ran by the resident drivers in the router. The router probably defaults to a complete write of all files, even hidden ones, and that's why you see them.

In the end you can just ignore them. You might poke around the settings for the router to see if it can write the files without altering their hidden flag but I'm not sure I'd do that honestly. Best to either connect the drive to an existing computer so it will inherit the proper settings (as you saw) or just leave it be.

[David]

Thanks Kelly. Good to hear from you.

I did decide just to plug the external to the computer desired when backing up. This way I do not see those annoying files. It is also faster to transfer files directly to the drive instead of going through the network. So it is all GOOD.