Router failed - how to access NAS?

danlightbulb · 2 Sep 2018 at 09:07

Hi all

My Virgin Superhub failed and it will be Tuesday before i get a replacement. I can no longer access the NAS drive I had connected to it.

I tried connecting it directly to my PC but it didnt work. Is there a way, and if so could someone explain in simple language how to set it up please?

Thanks.

andy_mk3 · 2 Sep 2018 at 10:03

Is your nas set up with a static ip or not? If so you can give your pc a static ip too and make a direct connection

danlightbulb · 2 Sep 2018 at 11:27

andy_mk3 said:
Is your nas set up with a static ip or not? If so you can give your pc a static ip too and make a direct connection

I dont know, and i dont know how to find out or what settings to change to see if this works. Ive no knowledge of networking.

The NAS is a WD my cloud. I just plugged it into the superhub out of the box and on my PC i mapped a network drive to it.

andy_mk3 · 2 Sep 2018 at 12:59

I'd imagine it's not got a static IP then. I'm not really familiar with those devices as my NAS is custom. But I'm assuming it still has a USB port on the back of it as well?

neil_g · 2 Sep 2018 at 13:04

Not many nas have a USB output.

You should be able to access most nas without dhcp however. If you reboot the nas and your pc so you both get the "no ip" 169 addresses, does the nas appear in the network section of this pc?

bledd · 2 Sep 2018 at 13:32

Unless it has a static ip swe, you'll need a DHCP server to give it a new IP.

If you're not sure on setting one up on your pc, you could end up in a big mess..

Short answer : replace router.

danlightbulb · 2 Sep 2018 at 20:22

I get a new router tuesday, just annoying as i keep important files on there. Rather silly that what is essentially an external hard drive cant be directly plugged in to pc.

BigT · 2 Sep 2018 at 20:30

danlightbulb said:
Rather silly that what is essentially an external hard drive cant be directly plugged in to pc.

Not really. The N in NAS stands for network. Without the router you don’t really have a network. If you really, really need to access the files you can. But you’re better off waiting for the replacement router as it isn’t straightforward.

iamtheoneneo · 3 Sep 2018 at 10:27

danlightbulb said:
I get a new router tuesday, just annoying as i keep important files on there. Rather silly that what is essentially an external hard drive cant be directly plugged in to pc.

Its not a harddrive though....its nothing like a harddrive in its operation.
This is also why you see a lot of people running a proper NAS with a DHCP server on it, so that it is not relying on another device to grant access.

bledd · 3 Sep 2018 at 20:03

Best bet is to statically set the IP, then print a label with the IP on it, stick to NAS.

danlightbulb · 4 Sep 2018 at 22:17

Got the new superhub today so all back up and running. Its given the NAS an IP address of 192.168.0.10 which is different to the previous one because i had to amend the shortcuts id created to access it. If i make it static (i can see an option for this in the mycloud settings page) what IP address should i force it to?

bremen1874 · 4 Sep 2018 at 22:39

You can use any 192.168.0.n IP that isn't in the Virgin hub's DHCP range.

If the Virgin hub supports IP reservations you could do that instead. The NAS would still get its IP using DHCP but would always get the same address.

danlightbulb · 5 Sep 2018 at 15:03

Once it has a static IP, is it just a case of plugging it into the pc ethernet port then, to access it?

bremen1874 · 5 Sep 2018 at 15:29

You’d have to set a static ip on the pc as well. Once they both have static IPs you could connect them directly.