Page 1 of Office/home networking quandry (friend`s problem)

Recieved this plea for help from a friend on FB:

Quote:
At work I have a BT broadband router to which I plug in a WD (western digital) network hard drive and use this to share files with my colleagues and store backups of the laptops. We have a static ip address for our broadband. Is it possible to view / edit files on the WD from home? We don`t have a computer/server at work as we only use our laptops so we can`t use logmein. Please help if you can this would free me from the office and save my husband loads of time.

I think no, but I don;t have much experience with networks

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Writer`s Release
My Collection

Crapit, I`ll get me coat. Till then I`ll look for a better link.

Link I first posted was for a home hub, looking for the business one is a bit more complex.

A google search for "port forwarding bt business hub" brings up plenty of results. I haven`t played with any BT kit for years so am totally in the dark as to what is configurable in the router. It should be quite easy with a business router, certainly the old Dreyteks I used to play with were quite easy and that was a decade or more ago. Things are probably much more simple now.

If it was me I`d log onto the router as admin and see what was there, it may be sat right there in plain sight.

This item was edited on Tuesday, 22nd March 2011, 21:23

Is the WD drive viewable in the office via a web page?
If so, is that web page on a non-standard port? (i.e. not "80") - hopefully there`s no webserver in the office if it is.

Bascule`s point above about port forwarding is basically what needs to be done.
Just make sure they assign a static IP to the WD drive on the internal network first (so it doesn`t change in the future and stop working).