cannot see usb disk attached to my time capsule
Airport Time Capsule 802.11ac Gen1
The 3 most common reasons that a USB hard drive will not "show up".
The disk must be formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Is it?
The disk cannot be password protected or encrypted
The USB port on the Time Capsule is underpowered, so you may need to use a powered USB hub with the Time Capsule, even if the hard drive has its own power supply
APFS won't work if you are attaching the drive to the USB port on the Time Capsule, since APFS did not exist at the time that the Time Capsule was designed.
It makes no difference whether the Time Capsule is set up in Bridge Mode or Router Mode as far as handling a USB disk.
So, there are probably two possibilities as far as the Time Capsule not recognizing the USB drive.
1) The drive needs to be set up again as only one partition formatted as Mac
and/or
2) You will need to use a powered USB hub because the port on the Time Capsule is under powered. Did you test this out?
The only other possibility that I can think of is that the USB port on the Time Capsule is an old (and very slow) USB 2.0 design. It may or may not interface with a newer USB 3.0 hard drive, although USB 3.0 is supposed to be backwards compatible.
I reformatted the entire 2TB disk as HFS+, even though I really don't need that much backup space. I also ordered a 4-port USB hub (powered), just in case. I re-connected the USB drive to the Time Capsule, and voila, it mounted to the TC and was available to Time Machine as a backup volume! So, so happy to have people in the Apple community that help us bozo'es sort this stuff out. Thanks so much for the help! PS: yes, I cancelled the usb hub!!!
Update......as a test I set up a spare USB drive here the same way that your drive is set up......two volumes, one HFS+ and the other APFS.
While my Macs recognize the drive and separate partitions, the Time Capsule does not recognize the drive at all.
So, as suggested already above as a possibility, you will need to try a different partitioning method for your USB drive in addition to possibly using a powered USB hub.
Thanks Bob, for the quick reply.
I have partitioned my 2TB disk into two volumes, one formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and the other with APFS, no password or encryption. The one oddity I may be fighting is my Time Capsule was set up in bridge mode (no WiFi). Using it as an ethernet access point for my downstairs Tivo and TV connections. Is this the issue?
Nice work!
I did not test this out, but 2 volumes on the same drive both formatted in HFS+ would probably work at the USB port on the Time Capsule.
Might be worth a try if you want to have one partition for Time Machine and another for general use.
Also, I've attached the USB drive directly to my MacBook and am able to see both volumes, and Time Machine recognizes them both, and backs up to at least one of them (so far) just fine.
cannot see usb disk attached to my time capsule
