Macbook doesn't "find" WD My Book World Edition Network Drive


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I recently purchased a Western Digital My Book World Edition 1 TB Network External Hard drive. I was able to get it connected to my new Windows 7 laptop in seconds, but for the life of me can't get it to connect to my wife's macbook.

The setup guide included in the My World Book box says to go to "finder" and that it should automatically find and display the My Book under a "Shared" heading. None of that is showing up for me.

What am I doing wrong. Can anyone provide any guidance (as specific as possible as I'm not very good at navigating this Macbook).

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

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This is all on Snow Leopard, but if she's on Leopard, it should be very similar.

Does the Finder look like this?

Screen%20shot%202009-12-09%20at%2010.52.24%20PM.png

Or like this?

Screen%20shot%202009-12-09%20at%2010.52.38%20PM.png

If it looks like the second one, you need to click the white "pill" button in the upper-right hand corner of the window. That'll make it look like the first screenshot. Then, you should be able to see the "Shared" listing sidebar (I have mine collapsed in the first screenshot, but yours would probably be expanded).

If you still don't see a Shared area in the sidebar, you may need to activate it by going to Finder > Preferences

Screen%20shot%202009-12-09%20at%2010.56.35%20PM.png

and then going to the Sidebar "tab" in the window that appears. Make sure that Connected servers and Bonjour computers are checked in that window

Screen%20shot%202009-12-09%20at%2010.57.58%20PM.png

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Thanks for providing the screenshots and assistance. Unfortunately, I have all 3 "shared" items checked and still no "sharing" header that you have in your first screenshot.

Any other ideas?

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Thanks for providing the screenshots and assistance. Unfortunately, I have all 3 "shared" items checked and still no "sharing" header that you have in your first screenshot.

Any other ideas?

Well, I'm reading up on the drive, and it definitely seems like the drive is set up by default with Bonjour enabled (the drive even works natively with Time Machine).

The only reason I can think of why the MacBook wouldn't be seeing it is if it wasn't on the same network as the drive, but I imagine both of your laptops are connected by WiFi using the same router? Just to troubleshoot, what if you used an ethernet cable to connect the MacBook directly to the same switch/router that the drive is connected to?

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Yes, both the windows laptop and the Macbook are connected to the same wi-fi router. I'll try connecting the macbook with an ethernet cable to the router and see if that works. Let's say that after I use the ethernet cable, it does find the drive, any idea what the issue would be with wireless?

Thanks again.

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Well, don't I feel like a dumbass. Somehow, my wife's Macbook was not connected to our wifi router, but rather, connected to an unsecured connection in our neighborhood. I noticed this after trying to download a file and it was VERY slow.

So, I got the Macbook reconnected to our wifi network and instantly the network shared drive showed up and is accessible so all is good.

I guess this is a lesson learned to always start at the beginning and make sure the basics are covered.

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