Enabling media streaming from a removable drive using Windows Media Player

Question

I have Windows Media Player set up to stream video to several devices in my apartment. I had recently run out of space so I purchased an external drive to store my videos/music etc.

I can add the media to my WMP library and play it locally without issue. As soon as I try to access the media from another device that supports media streaming (Media player or another PC) only the media stored on a fixed drive is available.

Is there a way to enable media sharing from a removable drive or somehow trick WMP that the media is stored on a fixed drive?

I tried setting up a SymLink linking a directory on the fixed drive to the removable one but with the same result.

Answer 1

I don't know if this is different than a symlink (I've mainly used Junction Points), but have you tried adding the external drive's partition to windows using a path? In Computer Management | Disk Management | right click over the partition and select Change Drive Letter and Paths | then choose Add or Change, there you can select Mount in the following empty NTFS folder.

The second option is mount the disk using iSCSI. Windows has a iSCSI initiator, but I've only used FreeNAS to make an iSCSI target. When I did this, it looked like a local drive, but I didn't attempt anything with media player library.

I hope one of these work for you.