I have set up my new apple airport extreme, it is not finding my external hard drive

Check the format of your external drive. ExFAT and NTFS formats aren't supported.

That hard drive needs to be formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or FAT32. Can you verify on that, please?

Once you check the formatting, what steps are you taking to mount the drive on the desktop?

Well.. technically FAT16 would work also

I am having the same problem with my new Airport Extreme. My external disk is MacOS Extended Journaled. I went through the steps - open airport utility, click on the airport extreme, click edit, click disks, the disk shows up. I add the only user name I use as admin, click update, then nothing shows up on the desktop. Moved the USB cable back to the mac - worked fine. Then back to the hub attached to the airport extreme and nothing.

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As an aside, I also have a problem with a Microsoft Intellipoint wireless keyboard and mouse. Can't get them to work either. I do have two USB printers that I have gotten connected.

Appreciate any help you can offer.

I add the only user name I use as admin, click update, then nothing shows up on the desktop.

It will not "show up" on the desktop like a normal drive that is directly connected to your Mac, since it is a "network" drive when you connect it to a network USB port.

Click anywhere on the open desktop to display the Finder menus at the top of the screen

Click the Go menu, then click Network

Double Click on AirPort Extreme

The name of the drive will be displayed as a folder

You may need to click "Connect As" in the right hand side of the window to connect the first time that you do this

Double click the folder representing the drive to mount it on the desktop

Or, you can do the same thing by opening any Finder window

Look for the AirPort Extreme under the SHARED heading on the left

Click the AirPort Extreme to display the folder representing the drive, etc.

Bob -

Really appreciate your reply. I followed the steps and did get to the finder screen showing not one, but two folders. One was the name of the external drive, the other my user name. Unfortunately, when I double clicked on the external drive, I got the following disk image: <name of my computer>.tmp.sparsebundle with zero bytes. When I double click on that image, the message says the disk image could not be opened because it was not recognized. I've restarted the computer - same story. Did I miss a step in here somewhere?

Thanks for your continuing help.

You are not trying to move a drive that was once connected directly to your computer to the AirPort Extreme, are you?

Time Machine backups are stored differently when a drive is connected directly to a computer compared to a network location. You cannot "mix'" backup data this way or read the files.

Another thought here is that if you plan to try to use the drive at the AirPort Extreme for Time Machine backups, this is not officially supported by Apple, and definitely not recommended. If you are using Time Machine for backups, keep the drive connected directly to your computer.

You could add another drive to the AirPort Extreme for "normal" data storage and it will work fine.

Bob-

Thanks for the answers. Sorry for my delay, I've been out since yesterday afternoon. You are correct - the external drive was strictly for my Time Machine backup. Since I have no other need for an external drive, gues I'll have to use one of the ports on my MacBook. The other issue I have is my MS IntelliPoint wireless keyboard and mouse won't work off the hub either. Is this a glitch, or is there some setup I need to do to identify the keyboard and mouse? I've gone through the System Prefs with no success.

Thanks again.

The other issue I have is my MS IntelliPoint wireless keyboard and mouse won't work off the hub either.

The USB port on the AirPort Extreme will only support a compatible printer and/or a hard drive, so I would be surprised if any other type of device worked at that location.

OK - really appreciate all your help. Got my answers - not, perhaps, the ones I hoped for - but definive just the same. Thanks again.