Totally and utterly lost

[StuckPI]

My plan is really simple:
I have a PI with a 4TB drive. That much works. It mounts from boot.
I tried samba and got nowhere windows 7 doesnt see the pi most of the time and wont even join the \\RASPBERRYPI to an IP when it does finally see it and as soon as the computer reboots NO MORE PI until i take the card out and do a full and entire re-install.
I havent even tried the mac or other linux machines yet.

[StuckPI]

Update: I still have no idea why samba wont work.
When i type smbtree -L 192.168.0.5 i get
session setup failed: NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE
I barely understand the command, let alone what its trying to tell me is wrong.

[W. H. Heydt]

While I have never used SAMBA, I would hazard a guess that the error message is telling you that the Window system doesn't have login credentials to connect to the Pi to gain access to the shared space. There is probably something in the setup on the Windows side where you supply ID and password for the connection. Bear in mind that Linux ID and password are "case sensitive".

[StuckPI]

Thank you
I checked my windows from top to bottom, its still a little erratic however i had NETBIOS in the services disabled. Once enabled the shares became visible via \\RASPBERRYPI
I also made a mistake, i was sending the server the user credentials, thats my own fault when i used the samba user/password it connected.

I didnt give up though but many thanks for your help, as it made me think about the issue.