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[ME1959]

Fellow Techies,

I am having difficulties in establishing a connection from my Windows 7 workstation to my router connected DNS-321. On the other hand, my Vista notebook on the same network, can see the NAS box just fine.

Steps I have tried:

- From the Windows 7 workstation, I can access the D-Link log-in screen
- From the Windows 7 workstation, I can "ping" the Volume_1 by typing ping and the associated IP
- From the Vista Notebook on the same network, I can see and access a Z drive mapping to the DNS-321 NAS
- From the Vista Notebook on the same network, I can access the Logon Screen
- The drive configuration is a formatted RAID 1 of two Hitachi Drives

Please note: I am using the latest in the East Search IP Utility from D-Link as well as the latest firmware.

Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

ME1959

[Dad Man Walking]

The easy access utility sometimes isn't so easy...

But since you already know the IP address of the NAS and can get to the setup screens, you have no need for the utility.  Just map the network drive directly in W7 using the address \\nas_ip_address\Volume_1 or \\NAS_DEVICE_NAME\Volume_1

I have found that using the IP address is more reliable.  I think that mapping it by name requires some windows network discovery stuff to be working...the PC needs to scan the network to find the device that is broadcasting its name.  If you map it by IP address, the network equipment (the switch) already knows the IP addresses of every device that is connected and forwards the traffic directly, without any network mapping nonsense.

At least that's how I think it works.

If you map to the IP address, you need to make sure the NAS has a fixed IP address.  Depending on your router, you will either assign it a manual address in a certain range of addresses, or you might let the NAS keep the DHCP address but tell your router that its address is reserved for that device, and is not to change.  I find the former approach the most reliable...easier to swap out a router if something breaks.  But either way you do it, those are basic (vs. advanced) router set-up features and you should be able to sort something out straight away.

[JavaLawyer]

Expanding on the prior poster's suggestion, here are two threads in our D-Link FAQ board on this forum describing how to manually map IP addresses:

• DNS ShareCenter - Mapping a DNS ShareCenter Device (IP vs. Volume Name)
  
• DNS ShareCenter - Mapping a Volume using Windows
  

If you map to the IP address, you need to make sure the NAS has a fixed IP address.  Depending on your router, you will either assign it a manual address in a certain range of addresses, or you might let the NAS keep the DHCP address but tell your router that its address is reserved for that device, and is not to change.  I find the former approach the most reliable...easier to swap out a router if something breaks.  But either way you do it, those are basic (vs. advanced) router set-up features and you should be able to sort something out straight away.

While I agree that it's easier to let each peripheral reserve its own IP address (e.g. in the event a router is replaced), it's always better to centralize the IP address management within the router itself rather than delegate that responsibility to each device.