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iomega Prestige 1.5 TB USP Hard Drive won't show up on AirPort Extreme (n)

Just bought a brand new iomega Prestige 1.5 TB USP hard drive and formatted it to HSF+ (Journaled).

The drive is recognized when it's plugged directly into my Mac Mini running the latest update of Snow Leopard (10.6.1) and I can run Time Machine just fine.

My AirPort Extreme (802.11n) however cannot see the drive when it's plugged directly into the base station. Nothing shows up.

The AEBS is running the latest firmware, and the USB drive has its own external power. It seems that other users have been able to use this drive as an AirDisk without incident. Any advice will be appreciated.

Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Oct 5, 2009 8:07 PM

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21 replies

Dec 31, 2009 6:41 AM in response to Jim Walls

I am also having this problem with a 1TB Iomega Prestige USB HD. Someone had mentioned a block size issue, but that doesn't make sense with HFS+; there's no way the blocks could be larger than 512. Can you explain why repartitioning would help? My "single" HFS+ partition is far less than 1TB due to the "soft partition" taken up by journaling.

If I don't find out soon, I'll just take this pile of junk back.

Jan 2, 2010 8:23 AM in response to demzappyeyes

I am having exactly the same problem here, trying to connect my Macbook to a 1.5tb Iomega drive via airport. I have a 500gb matador drive which works fine but the iomega drive is only recognized when plugged directly into the laptop - it will not show up in airport.

If anybody has any solutions or work a rounds let us know, else the drive is going back to the reatailers

Jan 3, 2010 3:27 PM in response to Jim Walls

Same problem with Iomega Prestige Desktop 1TB.

I have a Time Capsule 500 GB running the latest firmware as of today (7.4.2), and it will not recognize this drive.

Tried everything: reformatted using GUID part. table, multiple partitions - nothing will make this drive recognizable.

Drive works fine with my iMac and MacBook Pro.

Jan 6, 2010 3:29 PM in response to cmclaren

took my iomega drive to the shop and got a seagate drive in exchange. worked flawlessly at first attempt.

Funny that the seagate drive is not mac compatible on the paper!.... while the iomega should be, according to the specs....

I really missed some answer from apple on this thread. Those iomega drives don't get recognized by the aiport extreme bases, and they are being sold as "mac compatible".

Please Apple illuminate us on this topic. I just hope my experience saves someone from several googling hours.

Jan 6, 2010 3:37 PM in response to Markitus

+I really missed some answer from apple on this thread. Those iomega drives don't get recognized by the aiport extreme bases, and they are being sold as "mac compatible".+

+Please Apple illuminate us on this topic.+

As you know, this is a user to user forum. There is no indication that Apple even reads these boards and they have never responded on the forum.

You might want to contact Apple directly at

AirPort Extreme Feedback

Apr 27, 2010 9:56 PM in response to Jim Walls

hey folks - so i followed the last bit of advice, got a usb powered hub, attached the hard drive through that to the AEBS. I also formatted that drive over to start fresh. Well it was looking good at first - the drive was finaly recognized, mounted, time machine let me select it and is started backing up - it starts, gets to about 300 MG but then fails every time...arrrgh.

iomega Prestige 1.5 TB USP Hard Drive won't show up on AirPort Extreme (n)

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