unable to share a 500GB external hard drive on a Windows network

[Scott Berry]

Hello there,

I have a Sony Vgcra820G that I am trying to share a folder off an
external 500GB hard drive. I am using Nautilus and go in to
Places/Scott/sdownloads and click on sdownloads and go to share and tick
the checkbox for sharing using the name downloads and then telling it to
share the folder. But when the Windows clients see it they say that they
can not access it.  it also looks from my side as though for some reason
the folder is not getting mounted.  Where should I begin my research on
this problem?