Airport Extreme and External Hard Drive

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Airport Extreme and External Hard Drive

I've just bought an Airport Extreme and am trying to connect an External Hard Drive (500GB WD) through the USB to access my music files.

I cannot see it through the Airport software nor can I seem to access it any way. Any suggestions?

Windows XP

Posted on Nov 17, 2007 5:11 PM

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Answer 1

Tesserax

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160,822 points

Nov 17, 2007 6:26 PM in response to GTip

Hello GTip. Welcome to the Apple Discussions!

I cannot see it through the Airport software nor can I seem to access it any way. Any suggestions?

Did you install the AirPort utilities, especially the AirPort Disk Utility, that came with the base station on your PC? If so, did you use the AirPort Disk Utility to set up your external hard drive? Did you install Bonjour for Windows? If so, when using the AirPort Utility does it "see" the drive? If not, is the drive formatted in NTFS?

Sorry for all the questions, but I just wanted to be sure what your configuration is.

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Answer 2

Nov 17, 2007 7:29 PM in response to GTip

I'm having the same problem...Airport Disk Utility doesn't seem to see my LaCie USB drive.

I'm not sure what standard it's been formatted with but I think it says something in the user material about "File System: XFS". How are we supposed to reformat the drive to NTFS if it's not being seen by the computer?

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Answer 3

GTip Author

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Nov 17, 2007 8:00 PM in response to Tesserax

I did install the disk utility. How do I go about using the disk utility to set up the Hard Drive? Should I install Bonjour for Windows? If so, where can I get it?

Not sure what the drive is formatted in. It only holds music that I run on ITunes. Any way I can check?

Any answers would be very very helpful.

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Answer 4

GTip Author

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Nov 17, 2007 8:04 PM in response to GTip

OK, just saw that Bonjour is installed. I tried running it and it doesn't see the hard drive either.

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Answer 5

Tesserax

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Nov 17, 2007 11:16 PM in response to GTip

I did install the disk utility. How do I go about using the disk utility to set up the Hard Drive?

AirPort: How to mount an AirPort Extreme USB hard disk volume in Mac OS X and Windows

Should I install Bonjour for Windows? If so, where can I get it?

Only if you want to access a shared USB printer connected to the AirPort. You can get it here: Bonjour for Windows 1.0.4

Not sure what the drive is formatted in.

The AirPort Extreme (802.11n) supports USB storage devices that have a block size of 512 bytes, and are formatted as Mac OS Extended (HFS-plus), FAT16, or FAT32. It will NOT work with NTFS-formatted volumes.

(ref: AirPort Extreme (802.11n): USB storage device supported formats and protocols

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Answer 6

GTip Author

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Nov 18, 2007 11:17 AM in response to Tesserax

Thank you. I was able to get the problem fixed.

One more question now around re-pointing ITUNES. My ITUNES is pointed to my external hard drive so that when I log onto ITUNES it reads from the hard drive. Now that I've connected the hard drive to the router(Airport Extreme), ITUNES read "file not found". Is there a way to repoint by ITUNES to the Hard drive through the router?

Thanks.

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Answer 7

Tesserax

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Nov 18, 2007 11:53 AM in response to GTip

You should be able to use iTunes > Preferences > Advanced to point to the newly shared AirPort disk for the iTunes Library.

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Answer 8

IWM

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Nov 29, 2007 9:25 AM in response to mllattanzi

I too am having a problem with connecting a LaCie drive to my AirPort. When I plug the drive directly into my computer, it mounts on the desktop like normal. When I plug the drive into the back of the AirPort Extreme (802.11n), AirPort Utility opens and gives me an error message that says "Disk needs repair. There is a problem with the disk connected to your base station. Connect the disk to your computer to repair the disk." If I click on the AirPort Extreme in the AirPort Utility and then "Configure Manually," then click on the disk option at the top of the window, it shows my disk and all of the information on it including the disk name and size. Please help! I've contacted LaCie and they said the drive is supported with AirPort Extreme.

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Answer 9

Goshia

Level 4

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Nov 30, 2007 9:12 AM in response to Tesserax

I am using the older airport extreme, the dome styled one. I was told that I can't use the USB port on my airport extreme for an extrenal hard drive. Is that true?

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Answer 10

Duane

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Nov 30, 2007 9:34 AM in response to Goshia

Yes that is true.

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Answer 11

mammal

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Dec 9, 2007 6:52 PM in response to IWM

I'm in the same boat as IWM and I'm wondering if any solutions have been offered. My Lacie external hard drive is recognized and functions when connected directly to my MBP, but when I connect it to the Airport Extreme, it states that the disk is in need of repair. Confusing. And frustrating.

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Answer 12

GTip Author

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Dec 24, 2007 9:16 AM in response to GTip

Back again as I disconnected my external hard drive from the Airport Extreme, and can't seem to get it working again. I can see the hard drive through the Airport Utility, but cannot seem to access from my computer. Any hints?

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Answer 13

abmusic

Level 1

10 points

Jan 2, 2008 7:29 PM in response to mammal

I had the same problem with external hard drives attached to my Airport showing an error message stating the need to repair the drive. I attached it to my Mac, opened the disk repair utility, highlighted the external drive, and ran the disk repair utility. My files were repaired and I was able to use the external drive connected to my Airport Extreme. I have the Iomega, not the Lacie external drive, but should be the same as long as your external is formatted correctly.

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