Q: Why won't my airport extreme show my attached OSX journaled HDD?

The USB port on the AirPort Extreme is underpowered, so it is often necessary to use a powered USB hub with a hard drive....even if the hard drive has its own power supply.

A powered hub might help.

For example, I have 3 hard drives here from different manufacturs and they all have their own power supplies. None of them will work when I plug them directly into the USB port on the AirPort Extreme. When I use a powered USB hub, they all work just fine, either one at a time or all together.

Hi Bob: I see that you've answered similar questions through the years. I want to try this. Any specific external HD brands that you recommend?

LaCie.....more expensive....but worth it in my experience.

Thanks...and BTW..appreciate all your expertise (you're one of the best)

what do you mean by underpowered?

The USB port on the AirPOrt Extreme will not deliver as much power as a typical USB port on a Mac or PC.

my iomega HDD is powered if that helps?

If the USB port on the AirPort Extreme has enough power, you will not need to use a powered hub to connect your hard drive. If you cannot "see" the drive though, you probably need a powered USB hub.

what sort of powered usb hub would you suggest?

Virtually any powered hub should work. I use a Dynex 4 port powered hub from Best Buy. About $10 as I recall.

it doesnt help with the new air port utility UI

Not sure what you mean here. I've used both the older version of AirPort Utility and the newer one extensively. Using one interface over the other has nothing to do with the fact that the USB port is underpowered and it often requires a powered USB hub to allow a hard drive to work correctly.

any way to get the old one back?

It depends on the operating system that you are using now. If it's Lion, you can download and install AirPort Utility 5.6 for Mac OS X Lion . You can run either AirPort Utility 5.6 or 6.x.

If you have Mountain Lion, Apple will not allow you install AirPort Utility 5.6. The workaround is to use a utility like Pacifist to manually extract the application from the download package and install it that way.

This article will tell you how:

http://www.macworld.com/article/1167965/mountain_lion_and_the_ancient_airport_ba se_station.html

I have similar issue. Difference being I can see my external HDD (WD) - which is connected to Airport Extreme - on the Airport utility. However even after completing the set-up and enabling sharing etc. the HDD still can not be seen neither on my pc nor on my macbook. Should I still go for a powered hub or is there another way to address this?

Thanks in advance for your help.

However even after completing the set-up and enabling sharing etc. the HDD still can not be seen neither on my pc nor on my macbook

The WD drive is acting as a network drive when it is connected to the AirPort Extreme, so it will not just "show up" on the Mac's desktop like a drive that you connect directly to the Mac using the Mac's USB port or FireWire port.

Please provide the steps that you are using to mount the drive on the Mac to help troubleshoot your issue.

What happens after each step?

Here is what I tried - first I connected my HDD to the usb port of aiport extreme. Then started the ariport utility on my laptop. Using manual setup option, selected tab "Discs" and there I cud see my HDD. I selected this and then on tab "file sharing" selected option "with device password" and updated the settings.

Then I started explorer on my windows laptop but I can not find this hdd on my network therefore unable to map.

Hi Professor Bob (remember), good to see you again.

"If you have Mountain Lion, Apple will not allow you install AirPort Utility 5.6"

I had 5.6 and 6.0 installed next to each other in Lion. Both worked good.

Now I upgraded that machine to ML, and 6.0 was updated to 6.1.

Both 5.6 and 6.1 still work good, the only difference being that a new Airport Express (that I just bought), cannot be installed with 5.6, but needs 6. The rest I still can configure with 5.6.

It seems it is not as pertinent as you said. Perhaps a ML delivered machine will not install 5.6 anymore?

Can you help me to understand.

Lex

Hi Lex!

"If you have Mountain Lion, Apple will not allow you install AirPort Utility 5.6"

I should have said "Apple's Installer will not allow you to install AP 5.6".  There are utilities like Pacifist that can be used to manually extract the 5.6 application. Then, you can drag the 5.6 application to the Utilities folder and run it from there.

Of course, Apple does not support this, so the user is basically on his own. It seems to work fine for me and other users who post here, but you never know.

the only difference being that a new Airport Express (that I just bought), cannot be installed with 5.6,

The "new" Express can be installed and administered with 5.6. You will see a "warning" message when you open 5.6, but if you click Continue, it will allow you to manually set up the "new" Express.  At least, this works for me.

Perhaps a ML delivered machine will not install 5.6 anymore?

That I do not know, since both of my Macs were "upgraded" to Lion and then on to Mountain Lion. Maybe another user who has purchased a new Mac with ML pre-installed can tell us whether 5.6 can be installed with the same workarounds using Pacifist or another similar utility.

Then I started explorer on my windows laptop but I can not find this hdd on my network therefore unable to map.

I do not have a PC here handy at the moment, but have had no trouble in the past accessing a network drive attached to an AirPort Extreme on a PC running XP SP3.  I used Apple's instructions in the support document linked below, specifically method two....mapping...and method three.....user a server connection.

This will work even if the drive is formatted for Mac, or you can format the drive in FAT32.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1331

Regarding working on a Mac......are you saying that the drive will not mount on your Mac.....or that you do not know how to mount the drive on a Mac?

Hi Bob, thanks

"Continue, it will allow you to manually set up" : dammit, you are right, I was too afraid I might damage something and stopped at the warning sign! it works indeed. So upgrading to ML left my Airport Utility 5.6 unchanged. I will keep it for a while (growing old).

Thanks for your help.