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I have an airport extreme that abruptly stopped finding the attached USB hard drive. Archived posts on this question mentioned that the only solution was to install a powered USB hub because the airport extreme USB port had insufficient power. I have just added a powered USB hub but this has not resolved the problem. What else can be done to resolve this?
While we await your answer regarding the integrity of the backup disk, if you have a backup disk that abruptly stops working and no longer appears in AirPort Utility, it usually means the backup disk has suffered some degree of corruption and cannot be mounted. The Extreme gives up attempting to mount it, and it just disappears. When that happens, AirPort Utility will no longer indicate the disk is connected.
In some cases the Extreme will determine the disk needs attention and its LED will flash amber, or (again in some cases) the Extreme itself will no longer appear in AirPort Utility. Depending on your network configuration and complexity, it can even bring down your entire network.
The reason for all those various symptoms is due to the variety of hard disk drive failure modes that can manifest, and the configuration of your network.
In any case, connect the hard disk drive directly to your Mac and use Disk Utility. Then, we get into the "in some cases" again. If the disk is very corrupted sometimes Disk Utility itself will become unresponsive and has to be force-quit. If DU successfully mounts the disk, it may indicate the disk needs "repair" which may or may not be successful. If things get this far it usually isn't, and the "repair" fails.
However, in many cases you can use Disk Utility to erase the hard disk drive, after which you can reconnect it to the Extreme, re-select it in Time Machine's Preferences, and start a brand new set of backups. The disk may continue to work, sometimes for a very long time (years). Eventually though, the unavoidable effects of normal aging will become evident, and the disk will disappear again. Or, Time Machine detects corruption and offers to create a new backup. Or, Time Machine just says it cannot back up. Repeat the cycle.
When that cycle of failures becomes annoyingly frequent, discard the disk. That's one of many reasons one and only one backup disk does not comprise a robust backup strategy. You can connect more than one hard disk drive to the Extreme's USB port, but that definitely requires a powered hub.
Archived posts on this question mentioned that the only solution was to install a powered USB hub because the airport extreme USB port had insufficient power
Not quite. This issue referred to the initial step of connecting the USB drive to the AirPort Extreme for the first time. The port on the AirPort either has enough power for the drive or it doesn't. If the correctly formatted drive does not show up during this initial check, then that indicates that a powered USB hub is required to get enough power to the USB drive.
The fact that the drive worked for you for some time without the need for a powered hub indicates that a powered hub is likely not the solution for your particular issue.
I suppose it is possible that the USB port on the AirPort has failed, but that would be extremely rare. Do you have another USB device that you can use to test to see if the product works when you connect it to the USB port on the AirPort? If the USB port checks out OK......I imagine it will.....then you have to shift your focus to the USB hard drive.
John Galt has directed you to the correct path with his advice to connect the drive directly to your Mac to make sure that is it working that way and then checking the drive using Disk Utility / First Aid.
I won't comment further at this point to avoid confusion. You are in good hands with John.
I am sorry for not having replied earlier. I think I have understood what has happened although there are elements that escape me. When my hard disk initially "disappeared" from my Airport Extreme, I hooked it into my computer and ran Disk Utility where it mounted normally and appeared to be in good condition. However although being only a couple of months old, it must have been in its last throes, and maybe this is why it did not display under Airport Extreme. Whatever the case, it subsequently died. It took me a while to realize that it had, I thought it was just not showing up still. So eventually I was able to get it replaced under warranty and the new hard is working perfectly under Airport Extreme. Thank you very much for your input. I hope this helps someone who is in the same situation.
Great! Thanks for the update. It seems as though that hard disk drive was flaky to begin with. Diagnosing hard disk drives that are operating in various states of failure can be deceptively difficult. Even using Disk Utility may find errors, or it may not. Some errors are fixable, others aren't. The most practicable troubleshooting method is to substitute a different hard disk that is known to be working reliably — as you did.
Confirm the drive remains operational by connecting it directly to your Mac. Use Disk Utility.
airport extreme not seeing USB hard drive
