Q: Why won't my Extreme recognize an external Hard Drive?

Just bought a new Apple Airport Extreme (my first Apple product and not happy) and connected an external Hard drive to it via USB but I can't get my PC to recognize it. I can see it when I log into the extreme under utilities but that is it. I tried 3 different hard drives, 2 are in FAT32 and the larger one is NTFS. I followed Apple's instructions under disk sharing and still nothing.

I would greatly appreciate any advice to get this working.

Windows 7

Posted on Dec 5, 2012 5:46 PM

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Q: Why won't my Extreme recognize an external Hard Drive?

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by Bob Timmons,

Bob Timmons Dec 5, 2012 7:25 PM in response to MasterSgt
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Dec 5, 2012 7:25 PM in response to MasterSgt

Good evening.

Only drives that are formatted in FAT32 or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) will be compatible with the USB port on the AirPort Extreme. NTFS and exFAT are not supported.

Unfortunately, we have few Windows users here, and I am not one of them, but one of the Apple Support documents below provides 3 methods for PCs to connect to a drive at the AirPort Extreme. The other provides general information about format compatibility.

Hopefully, one of the PC guys will post soon to provide additional information.

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

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2426

I believe that you have 90 days of free phone support with a new Apple product, so you might want to explore that route as well.

http://www.apple.com/support/contact/
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by MasterSgt,

MasterSgt Dec 5, 2012 11:53 PM in response to Bob Timmons
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Dec 5, 2012 11:53 PM in response to Bob Timmons

Thanks for the info. I did try two different drives formatted in FAT32 and like I said, I can see them when I log into the utility but not as a separate drive on the PC
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by Bob Timmons,

by MasterSgt,

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