Change drive type to local - PLEASE HELP

[goodpastur]

I have been trying to find a solution to this all day and I can't believe this isn't an easy thing to do. I want to change the "type" property of a network drive from network drive to local disk. I have a backup software that doesn't accept network drives and I don't want to duplicate everything on a local drive. I was backing everything up just fine until i bought myself a new Linksys NAS200 device and a TB WD drive but after moving everything from all 3 of our PC's to the central NAS, I found my backup program only likes local drives. Is there hopefully a registry hack to do this?

thanks,
Jon

[Cithel]

I have been trying to find a solution to this all day and I can't believe this isn't an easy thing to do. I want to change the "type" property of a network drive from network drive to local disk.

Sorry man but by definition a NAS is a network drive, trying to change it can lead to lots of problems. Windows is smart enough to know the difference so there aren't any options to fake it out. If you do find a reghack to do this it would be a very bad idea to use it.

Also some software is licensed only to backup local drives so trying to change the type could be against the EULA of the backup software.

Having said all that most NAS devices have USB connectivity so in theory you could simply run a USB cable from the NAS to your PC and then Windows and your backup software would see it as a local drive. If that isn't an option then there are several programs out there that can backup a NAS device.

Best of luck.

EDIT: Just looked at the NAS200, looks like USB is an option.

[goodpastur]

I believe the usb ports are for an external HD or flash drive.

AS far as the EULA ... it's livedrive.com and i pay over $100 a year for unlimited storage. They want to replace the NAS all together but I'm not trusting online 100% for everything I have plus still too slow compared to LAN. I'm always going to have a local copy somewhere. I bought the NAS to solve these problems of when I need something on my wife's PC, it always seems to be off, my son't PC ... same thing and vice versa. This way I ALWAYS have access to it no matter which direction or PC I am at.

---------- Post added at 08:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:13 PM ----------

I tried mklink but it keeps saying incorrect syntax. I tried mklink /d c:\NAS \\Network_Drive\Public Disk 1\ and still can't figure it out. Is this what I need?

[Cithel]

Too bad about the USB,

It would be easier to just map the NAS as a local drive, effectively it is the same thing as what you are trying to do with mklink (mask the UNC path to fool the backup software into thinking its a local drive).

Use explorer to map the drive or in a cmd prompt to map the NAS as the z drive:
net use z: "\\Network_Drive\Public Disk 1" /persistent:yes
(assuming no authentication required on the NAS)

If that doesn't work and you want to try the mklink method the command would be:
mklink /d "c:\NAS" "\\Network_Drive\Public Disk 1"
note the quotes and the lack of the "\" at the end.

I'm not familiar with the livedrive.com software but I'm pretty familiar with backup software in general. Usually the reason that they limit it to local drives (aside from getting more money by selling more copies of the software) is that they read the blocks on the the disk rather than reading the files themselves. Even if the NAS is mapped as a local drive (or using a symbolic link via mklink) the backup software may not have the "direct" (for lack of a better word) access to the hard drive that it needs.

Will be interesting to hear the results. Best of luck.