Airport time capsule crash with attached USB hard drive

Question

Level 1

2 points

Airport time capsule crash with attached USB hard drive

Hi All,

I recently purchased a new "tower" airport time capsule and it works just fine except when I attach a Lacie 2 TB HDD to it by using the USB connection. I wish to backup some critical photo files to it but when I use either CCC or Deja Vu the process works as expected for a few minutes and then the time capsule hangs. At this point, I'm unable to access the HDD on my desktop and the only solution is to restart the airport itself by unplugging it (restarting my mac doesn't help). Has anyone else experienced this issue and, importantly, does anyone know of a possible solution as it's quite frustrating! I've updated the HDD firmware but it hasn't solved the problem. What's particularly odd is that I never had this problem with my old airport extreme. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4)

Posted on Jul 16, 2013 6:16 PM

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Answer 1

braden85

Community Specialist

Jul 19, 2013 7:03 AM in response to ulairi9

Hi there ulairi9!

I understand how this would be a frustrating issue! I have an article here that can provide some troubleshooting steps for you, and can hopefully help you resolve the issue. That article specifically addresses the issue you are experiencing, and can be found here:

AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule: External USB drive becomes inaccessible

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3271

Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities!

Cheers,

Braden

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Answer 2

ulairi9 Author

Level 1

2 points

Jul 19, 2013 2:25 PM in response to braden85

Hi Braden,

Thanks so much for the advice. For a few short minutes, I thought it was all good but then the same issue happened again! Note that my USB hard drive is powered so it's not a low power issue. And importantly, everything worked fine with my old Airport Extreme (2nd generation)!

Any other suggestions?

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Answer 3

braden85

Community Specialist

Jul 19, 2013 2:57 PM in response to ulairi9

Hi again ulairi9!

Thank you for using the Apple Support Community. Due to the nature of your issue or question you may find more information by using another one of Apple's support resources - https://expresslane.apple.com/GetproductgroupList.action.

Cheers,

Braden

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Answer 4

nils.f

Level 1

4 points

Sep 25, 2016 1:07 PM in response to ulairi9

Had the same issue - turned out to be caused by formatting the additional drive with a case sensitive file system; apparently the airport extreme/ time capsule can't handle it. connect the hdd to your mac and format it with the standard apple file system, journalling on, no case sensitivity - did the trick for me.

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