Windows Vista Home Premium Computer Doesn't Connect to Airport Extreme's Hard Drive

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Level 1

4 points

Windows Vista Home Premium Computer Doesn't Connect to Airport Extreme's Hard Drive

I have a hard drive connected to an Airport Extreme. The hard drive is recognized by the Windows computer; that is a dialog box appears that states 'The Airport Disk became available'. But when I attempt to supply a password it tells me "Could not connect to the disk. Make sure netBIOS is enabled and try again (53)."

The hard drive connected to the Airport Extreme is 500Gb and formatted as FAT32. The hard drive has its own power source. There are no spaces in the hard drive's name or in the Airpot Extreme's name. I've assigned WORKGROUP as the workgroup on both the Airport Extreme and the Windows Vista comptuer. I've enabled netBIOS for the TCP/IPv4 connection.

The vista computer is connected to the Airport Extreme via an ethernet cable; the cable is connected to a LAN slot of the Airport Extreme.

All help is appreciated.

Airport Extreme-OTHER, Windows Vista, Connected Hard Drive

Posted on Sep 10, 2012 12:19 AM

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Answer 1

CRMDVM

Level 4

1,369 points

Sep 10, 2012 6:29 AM in response to ndwork

Hi - The only thing I would check is that all of the appropriate sharing settings are enabled - have you gone into "Change Advanced Sharing Settings" in the Network and Sharing Center in Control Panel and checked to see what the settings are?

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Answer 2

ndwork Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 10, 2012 8:49 AM in response to CRMDVM

Thank you for your response. I just checked; the network settings were somewhat restricted. I've changed them so that network discovery is on, file sharing is on, publich folder sharing is on, printer sharing is on, password protected sharing is on, and media sharing is on.

I am still unable to access the hard drive connected to the airport.

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Answer 3

CRMDVM

Level 4

1,369 points

Sep 10, 2012 9:09 AM in response to ndwork

I saw that you were also following the thread by Tessarax - there were many great tips there - if it doesn't work after trying all of this then as a last resort, I would reboot you hard drive and then I would do a hard reboot of your PC - sometimes the NIC card needs to be restarted to see everything on the network - other than that I can only suggest trying a Windows 7 computer and see if it makes a difference - Vista is quirky so who knows - I would also check firewalls and anit-virus programs for conflicts - also look into 32 bit vs 64 bit conflicts - sorry I couldn't have been of more help

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Answer 4

ndwork Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 10, 2012 9:20 AM in response to ndwork

Ok, here's a clue. I've changed the drive attached to the airport. I've replaced my Seagate 500Gb externally powered hard drive with a Lexar 8 Gb flash drive. After doing so, I get a different error.

The error I get now is 'Unknown user, incorrect password, or login is disabled. Please retype the login information or contact the disk's administrator (67).'

This gives me the idea that the problem might be with the drive. Any ideas?

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Answer 5

CRMDVM

Level 4

1,369 points

Sep 10, 2012 10:05 AM in response to ndwork

Sounds like you are on the right track but I will have to say that I am very sorry but I am out of ideas - you are getting way out of my experience level - and I have to apologize about my previous post - I spelled Tesserax name wrong - you need help from one of the high level participants - I answered your orignal post because I have had sharing issues with Vista and thought that I could help - having said all that, I just thought of a last resort suggestion - make sure that your hard drive works when connected directly to your computer and then reset your Extreme and start from scratch - if that doesn't work then you might just have an incompatible setup - also if you wait a while and reword your question with your new findings, maybe a more experienced participant will respond - good luck.

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Answer 6

ndwork Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 10, 2012 10:10 AM in response to CRMDVM

I have checked that the hard drive works when connected directly to the computer. It does. 🙂

You were helpful. I appreciate the effort. Thanks.

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Answer 7

CRMDVM

Level 4

1,369 points

Sep 10, 2012 10:16 AM in response to ndwork

I just re-read this entire post and realized that you have the sharing password as "on" - I would turn this off - it may be causing some of your problems

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Answer 8

ndwork Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 10, 2012 2:10 PM in response to CRMDVM

Thanks for the suggestion. It also did not fix the problem, but it was worth a shot.

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