HT204664: AirPort: How to mount an AirPort Extreme USB hard disk volume in Mac OS X and Windows

Learn about AirPort: How to mount an AirPort Extreme USB hard disk volume in Mac OS X and Windows
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bholtzkener

Q: The menu on my airport utility does not match  that which is described in  in this article

I am trying to mount and share a  2TB USB WD drive on an airport extreme. This will be used for time machine backups and large video file storage.

I have successfully (at least the system said it was successful) written and read the graphics files and completed a full time machine backup on the drive.

There was a Time Machine backup on this drive, but Time machine didn't seem to want to use it, so I created another. The one I created is approximately the size of my MAC hard drive data, is called "bfmj9.sparcebundle" and is dated when the full backup completed. There is another folder in the directory called  "backups.backupdb" which comprises many files which look like dates. It was last updated before I started to the backup yesterday.

So I called support and was given some instruction and Apple documents which seemed to have a different menu structure than what my AirPort Extreme shows. In particular, one says to:

Manually mounting hard disks using the AirPort Disk menu bar item

  1. Click the AirPort Disk menu bar icon ( ) and select the Base Station with desired USB hard drive.
  2. Select the desired hard disk(s) (AirPort Disk).
  3. Enter the username and password required to access the AirPort Disk(s).

When I click on the menu item, I do not get the list of hard disks.

 

Perhaps I have set the disk up incorrectly. The strange part is that both the new time machine backup and my other files are behaving properly.

Thanks for any help you can give.

 

Barry

AirPort Extreme 802.11n (5th Gen), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Oct 15, 2012 12:53 PM

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Q: The menu on my airport utility does not match  that which is described in  in this article

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  • by LaPastenague,Helpful

    LaPastenague LaPastenague Oct 15, 2012 1:02 PM in response to bholtzkener
    Level 9 (52,825 points)
    Wireless
    Oct 15, 2012 1:02 PM in response to bholtzkener

    Apple updated the airport utility but have not updated the documentation for some time.. really slack considering it is significantly different.

     

    The new utility is a poor substitute for the original and perhaps by not publishing new manuals they can hide their shame at how much functionality they removed.

     

    It is possible to load a real utility even into mountain lion.. I strongly recommend you do so.

     

    Download the real utility.

     

    http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1482

     

    Click to open the DMG so you can see the pkg file.. do not proceed further. It cannot install onto ML.

     

    Download unpkg, install and run it.

    http://www.timdoug.com/unpkg/

     

    Drag the airport utility pkg onto unpkg.. and presto.. it will be unpacked to a new directory on your desktop.. AirPortUtility56 .. now drill down to Applications Utilities. And there is your new shiny tool.. drag it to your existing utilities folder.. or just start from there.

     

    Not hard and unpkg is free.

    You cannot remove 6.1 toyland version so just ignore it.. as it richly deserves. Do not attempt to run both.

    Just remember when you want the airport utility start the real one. 5.6

  • by bholtzkener,

    bholtzkener bholtzkener Oct 15, 2012 1:12 PM in response to LaPastenague
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 15, 2012 1:12 PM in response to LaPastenague

    Thanks for confirming I am not nutz!

    Barry