Access to External Hard Drive through Router

clintondaly

Hi

i have recently switched provider from Eircom to Vodafone broadband.
The problem i'm having is that i can connect a philips External Hard drive to my Router through the USB connection,using a wirless connection between my Laptop and router, and goint to the IP address of the router i can see that the Hard Drive is connected to the router but i cannot connect to the router,i have tried to map the drive and get so far with the process and it asks me for a password,i have tried all the passwords that i have(PC username and password,router username and password)but none seem to work.The router is a HUAWEI HG556a,there were no instructions supplied for the router other than a few simple set up steps,i rang vodafone and they said that they could not assist with a periphary device set(why send me something that can accept peripharies but refuse to support it).
There does not seem to be instructions on the net for this device.
Am i doing something wrong,is my hard drive compatable(Philips Portable External Hard drive-SPE2010cc/10.

Help appreciated

msg11

I'm just guessing on this one.

But I don't think the USB port on the router is ment to be used in such a way.

The hard drive straight into the router is skipping layers of the OSI model.

Hook the USB port up too a computer then share the drive threw the computer. That would be how I would do network storage.

Jonathan W

Hi There,
Did you get an answer to this issue.
I would have agreed that it should not have worked but the management console tells you that it should work.
I have just got the HG556a as well and when I connet an external HD to the router, the managment cosole shows it as available but I cannot map to the drive or see it.

Anyone any ideas?

Its like the USB port's are not open or configured in some way.

clintondaly

Hi

I got a reply from Paul the Vodafone support guy that is assigned to Boards,he says that he may have a fix but he has to dig it out.

Rgds

Clinton

Jonathan W

Thats great. Let me know if you get anything out of them.
I emailed the maufactor in china so we will see.

Have you tried a Vodafone dongle in the top usb slot

I have and it doesnt work.

Another phone call to tech support

divine tomasz

hi there !
if u google hg556a u will come across thread here on boards.ie about flashing this modem or firmware upgrade . have a look there first .
anyway vodafone has no idea how to use this device , i've been told that they dont support it at the moment . we obtained login/password to advanced setup ( admin/VF-IRhg556 ) . now, if u want use external hdd connected to the modem dont go ftp way . every os got map network drive feature - thats all u need . type in \\192.168.1.1 and click browse . u will see under network shared/usb drive , by default drive name will be USBDisk_1 . if ur hdd is ntfs , u won't be able to write to drive or use iso files (:mad: ) if fat32 ur limited to 4gb per file ( no iso again :mad: )

Ps. modem is workin on BETA firmware at the moment , so thats why its performance is so poor . i won't shoot far of saying that all hg556a got issues with connection ( pages not loading , connection timed out , pictures not loading ...etc ) , but thats just part of the truth . vodafone servers r guilty too , the routing of traffic is broken ( try tracert command in win , lets say www.speedtest.net ) . anyway very poor service from vodafone , as still they tryin to cover up , still sending broken devices ( bewan modem got same issues ) . will be changing isp shortly .

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Jonathan W

Fantastic,:D

That works great,

Like the speed test too I am getting around 6Mb download and Next to nothing up, but thats ok for me.

Could you tell me how to access the advanced menu settings as I cannot see were to put in the login/password to advanced setup ( admin/VF-IRhg556 )

Cheers for your help.

divine tomasz

aloha !
just go to ur browser address bar , type 192.168.1.1 , dont login using vodafone/vodafone ( thats user account ) , use admin/VF-IRhg556 instead . be carefull !!! dont change any settings if u dont know what r they !!!
greetings !

joeyla

Update for newer modems. Login using

User: advanced
Pass: advanced

loopymum

Bloody Brilliant! When I joined Vodafone first I heard this was crap but decided to have a go again and it's working brilliant! Extremely handy!