AirPort Utility can't find wireless device on my MacBook

When having difficulties accessing the AirPort/Time Capsule thru the AirPort Utility, try the following, in order checking accessibility with the utility after each step:

o Check the local connection. If you are trying to access the AirPort wirelessly, make sure that you are connected to its wireless network before running the AirPort Utility to administer it. If you are still unable to access it with the utility, temporarily connect your computer directly using an Ethernet cable to one of the base station's LAN ports.

o Power cycle the base station. Remove the power adapter's plug from the power outlet, and then, wait 15 seconds before plugging it back in.

o Perform a "factory default" reset on the base station.

minimidgy wrote:
I am trying to configure Time Machine MacBook. It opens up AirPort Utility and scans for an AirPort wireless device, but it can't find it.

If you pull down the AirPort menu bar item, does it show your MacBook as connected to the network created by your AirPort base station (assuming you have one)?

The AirPort Utility is the administration utility for AirPort or Time Capsule base stations. If none are present, then it would be normal for it not to find any.

On the other hand, your MacBook has a built-in AirPort wireless card. Are you saying that it is unable to find any wireless networks or just yours? If just yours, what is the make/model of the router providing the wireless network? Is this wireless network configured for encryption? If so, which standard: WEP, WPA, or WPA2?

minimidgy wrote:
I am trying to configure Time Machine MacBook.

The Time Machine backup software requires an external disk drive, a networked drive, or a second drive partition. Do you have any of those?

minimidgy wrote:
I have an external hard drive

I'd attach that drive to your Mac (assuming you want to use it that way) so that it mounts on your Mac's Desktop, then open the Time Machine panel of System Preferences and see if you can configure it to use that disk.

If you've tried that already and AirPort Utility is still launching, then you have a very strange situation.

Other questions that might be relevant to your problem: After you mount the external disk, launch Disk Utility, then select the drive (not the volume) in the column on the left. What do you see at the bottom for "Partition Map Scheme"? When you select the volume on the external disk, what do you see at the bottom for "Format"?

minimidgy wrote:
Is it going to erase everything on my external drive and replace it with the backup, or will it just add the backup to the existing files?

Time Machine will not erase the existing data. However, it can cause trouble to share a single volume for Time Machine data and data of other types. By its design Time Machine will eventually consume all the space on its volume. It would be better to divide your external drive into two partitions and use one partition for Time Machine and the other for the other data.

After an hour on the phone with Apple Tech Support here was my fix......SIMPLE:
In finder, go to - Mac HD, Library, Preferences - drag the folder 'SystemConfiguration' into the trash

Restart.

Evidently, there were some corrupt files in there which, in my case, made my AP utility sporadically lose both my airport devices. Trashing that folder and the files within, and restarting automatically creates a new fresh system configurations folder. The AP Utility immediately found my hardware with this fix, but only time will tell if this was root cause and be a long-term fix.

Best of luck.

I too also had the problem: Airport Utility on my MacBook could not find any devices, but other computers at home could see them, and all of them were on Ethernet.

I trashed /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration, rebooted, and Airport Utility on my MacBook saw my router for the first time in years.