Mount Laptop as external hard drive?

[Mr. Electric Wizard]

Anyone know if it is possible to mount my Laptop (via usb) as an external hard drive on another computer to transfer files?

[earobinson]

why not just network them, and shair one of the hd's

[Mr. Electric Wizard]

Basically when I at home I use SCP to transfer files to/from.
I am new to laptops, and really am trying to figure out all the little differences and little things I can do with them.
I know that whenever you connect a usb hard drive to windows, XP will mount as a removable drive.

I am just wondering if I were to hook up my laptop to a buddies XP computer, will it mount like a mass storage device. One issue I foresee is that the usb plug on my laptop is an thin wide plug (not the little end).

Just brainstorming. And trying to keep from burning a DVD...:smile:

[earobinson]

You should be able to plug your latpot into your buddys network (using the network cable) and then shair folders on the network.

A laptop will not be treated like a mass storage device by any OS. You may want to take a look at this http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=76647&highlight=windows+share+files

[psusi]

Actually, IIRC, macs have a special mode you can boot them up in with a magic key combination where they behave like a firewire external hard drive so you can connect them with firewire to another mac, and the first computer's hard disk shows up as a removable drive on the second computer.

You can't do that with linux or windows though, so instead you should just network the computers and share files with samba. You can even use firewire for the physical connection if you want.

You should be able to plug your latpot into your buddys network (using the network cable) and then shair folders on the network.

A laptop will not be treated like a mass storage device by any OS.

[earobinson]

I stand corrected. Guess you learn something every day :) Thanks for the tip psusi

[earobinson]

Double post :(

[Mr. Electric Wizard]

Thnx:)

[leptogenesis]

Four years old, but I'm bumping it anyway...because this is just about the coolest idea I've ever heard. I share large files with random people all the time--people who aren't necessarily technically inclined--and I don't particularly want to be fiddling around with settings on their computers in order to make it work.

It would make my life so much easier if I could just set up my computer to pretend it's an external hard drive. Then I could just plug in with a standard usb cable and start sharing. How hard could it possibly be to make a linux box act like an external hard drive? Does anyone know?

[lophie]

I totally agree with you. I stormed google for this and the closest thing I found is this thread. I'm bumping this thread too.

Please if anyone is going to reply. Please don't mention file sharking via network anymore :(. We are asking about USB. and not just file sharing, It's for a computer to be considered as an external HDD.

I plan to boot ubuntu installation using my laptop to install this awesome OS into other PCs.

Thank you