Two Vista 64 machines, one DVD Library - problems

[MarcoPolo213]

Hi all, I have a problem I need some advice I'm hoping someone here can point me in the right direction.

I have two new computers, matching actually, except I have a Fantom Terabyte external eSATA hard drive attached to one computer. I've entered a lot of my DVD library into the Fantom drive. Everything works fine on the computer (backroom) to which the eSATA drive is attached. No problems here.

But when I attempt to have WMC access the library from my second computer (frontroom), no go, at all.

I have gone through every exercise I can think of, add movies, identify DVD locations, review sharing properties, add folders to watch... I'm lost here.

Initially when I set it all up, I could see the DVD's in the DVD library folder, and could start the movie inthe frontroom, but then both computers would instantly freeze requiring restarts. I have a Netgear WGT624 wireless router that is several years old. Could this be part of the problem, watching movies in one room (frontroom) fed from a hard drive in the backroom?

Everything appears to be shared properly, I do not have passwords set up on the computers, because I want the system to be family friendly. I can see the files with Windows Explorer, but cannot access the files. I cannot get Media Center to display or play the movies on the second computer (frontroom).

I attached the Fantom eSATA drive to the frontroom computer, but then I was surprised because it would not recognize or play movies from here either. Perhaps there is a trick I'm unaware of to make this work. I've since moved it back to the original location attached to the backroom. Both computers are the same, built the same day, same operating system, everything.

Any ideas I can track down?

I'm new here, I put all my specs on my profile page. I hope that's what I am supposed to do.