Unable to connect to server 2012 R2 shares. Internet connection sharing problem

[GD4E1]

Hi
I have a box with server 2012 R2 running and several shares that I'd like to be able to access across the network from my phone (I'm using ES file explorer) but am unable to. I believe this is due to the fact that the server box only has a wired connection which is sent through my laptop via a (secondary) router and my laptop is connected to the Internet connected WiFi of the primary router. I make use of the connection sharing feature on my windows 10 laptop to connect the Ethernet port on the laptop to the WiFi network that the laptop is connected to. I believe the secondary router (between my laptop and server box) does have its own WiFi network enabled but there's other resources on the primary network that I'd like to be able to access as well and having to change WiFi networks is a bit of a pain.
Is this something to do with port forwarding (on the laptop? Primary router? Secondary router?) Or something else entirely?
Thanks in advance

 

[mrjimphelps]

Is there a reason that you share the laptop's connection, in order to provide a secondary connection to the server box? I think you would be better off if you connected the server with a primary connection, just like the laptop has. In fact, I believe that the "primary" and "secondary" scenario is what is causing the failure when you are trying to access the shares.

I'm guessing that the place you live provides wifi internet, and so that's why you are connecting the server through the laptop. A simpler way might be to get a wifi adapter for the server, and then let the server get a primary connection.