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Leo Laporte A technology journalist, author and broadcast personality. His specialties lie in computers, the Web, video games, digital music and consumer electronics. |
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Amber MacArthur An experienced Web content and usability strategist, Amber is also a tech journalist who specializes in Internet, software, and gadget trends and tips. |
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Warm up that old PC - it can have a second life as an MP3 server on your home network.
Turn your old computer into a music server
If you want to give that old computer new life on your home network, try using it as a file server for music so that no matter where in the house you are you can access your massive digital music library from any computer. Here's what you'll need to do.
- 1) You'll need a home network. I'm going to assume that you do. If you don't you'll need to buy a home network router ($50–75 US from DLink, Linksys, Netgear, etc.) and connect it to you high speed Internet connection and connect all your computers to it, including the old computer you are going to turn into a music server.
- 2) Check to see that your old computer has the chops to be a music file server.
- a) You'll need to make sure that there's enough hard drive space for all your files. Really old computers will have hard drives that are less than 10 GB, so you might consider adding a new larger hard drive. An old Pentium II or better with a 10 GB hard drive is probably your best bet.
- b) Double check to see that the computer has a network card so it can be connected to the network. Most older computers will have 10 Megabit Ethernet cards which should be fine, but you might consider upgrading to a newer 100 Mbit or Gigabit card.
- c) Put all your files on the computer in a folder called MUSIC on the Desktop.
- d) For easy identification on the network you might consider renaming the computer MUSICSERVER in control panel under Network and Identification Tab (in Windows 98).
- 3) Right click on the MUSIC folder to activate sharing and give the shared folder a name on the network. You may have to run the file and printer sharing wizard first then right click and activate sharing after this.
- 4) On the MUSICSERVER computer click START then Run then type cmd (XP) or command (Windows 95/98) to get a DOS box and type ipconfig to see what the computer's IP address is. make a note of it. It will be something like 192.168.x.x where the X represents number between 0 and 255.
- 5) Now go to your regular computer and start Windows Explorer where you usually play your MP3 files from. You'll want to assign the MUSICSERVER as a virtual drive, maybe call it your Z drive. In Windows Explorer click Tools then Map Network Drive. Then choose the drive letter to use (ie. Z:). Under folder type the IP address of the MUSICSERVER computer and name of the folder you assigned when you shared it. It should look something like: \\192.168.1.104\MUSIC\ Then click Finish. Now all those MP3 files are now accessible of the network as your Z drive.
- 6) NOTE: You have to repeat #5 for each computer you want to access the MUSICSERVER from.
