Computer cannot see wired USB hard drive after it has been connected and disconnected from Airport Express

Question

Computer cannot see wired USB hard drive after it has been connected and disconnected from Airport Express

A colleague of mine has the same issue with a Mac

I loaded data on a new USB hard drive with a Windows 10 PC. Then successfully installed that Hard drive on Airport Express. A week later, I disconnected it, and connected it directly to the PC. The USB bell indicates the connection, but the drive is not visible in File Explorer. It is visible in Device Manager, but not accessible. When reconnected to the Airport Extreme, or Airport Express, it becomes visible again in File Explorer. I obtained the same results with two of these drives. A third of these drives which has never been connected to Airport Express is visible on File Explorer without problems.

Hard Drives Armour 30, 2TB

PC XPS 13 9350

Airport extreme 2015 Q3

Airport express 2015 Q4

airport extreme

Posted on Jan 20, 2016 7:23 PM

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Answer 1

Bob Timmons

Level 10

187,868 points

Jan 20, 2016 7:34 PM in response to Hybrid from montreal

The AirPort Express will not support a hard drive.....it will only support a compatible USB printer.....(see linked Apple Support document)......,so can you clarify in more detail what your real issue might be?

Uses for the USB port of AirPort Time Capsule, AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Jan 21, 2016 7:28 PM in response to Bob Timmons

Bob,

Oups, I meant Airport Extreme. So, after loading the drive with data on the laptop, I installed the drive on an Airport Extreme. It worked flawlessly. I later connected it to an Airport Express and it also worked (despite what the article says). My issue is that when I connect the drive directly to the laptop USB port, it is now invisible to the file explorer. This has been repeated numerous times.

The hard drive is not completely invisible to the laptop, because the usb bell rings both on connect and disconnect, and the Device Mgr sees it. It looks as if the Extreme had installed its own driver on the hard drive. The driver check says the hard drive has the latest driver installed. I have not reformatted the drive, it is as received. I have 3 of these hard drives; only the one which was never attached to the Extreme is visible to the laptop.

The article you brought indicates it should work on neither the Extreme nor the Express because the hard drive is not self powered. It is however a very small drive, 2 inches ... and it has been working for two months, as long as it is connected to the Extreme or Express. I have asked a colleague to try reading it with a Mac. I will let you know tomorrow if he had any luck.

Thank you for your feedback, I have already learned something,

Regards, Raymond

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Answer 3

Jan 21, 2016 7:38 PM in response to Hybrid from montreal

I did not find a way to fix my title typo.

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Answer 4

Jan 21, 2016 8:28 PM in response to Hybrid from montreal

I am trying to understand what is going on..

I am guessing the drive is formatted FAT32?

And was formatted on the Win10 computer or came formatted FAT32.

How big is the drive.. there are certain sizes where things start to go strange with FAT32 and the way different disks handle the format.

There is a good chance the Apple device will write something to the drive.. although that should not stop you reading the drive.

Do you have a computer with any other OS??

I do know there is some stated issue which is particular for windows 10 and using the apple routers for storage.. but the details of it I have not explored.

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Answer 5

Jan 22, 2016 7:07 AM in response to Bob Timmons

Bob,

My colleague tried to read the hard drive with a Mac and a PC and has obtained the same results: the computers cannot see the hard drive when wired to it, but can see it through the Airport Extreme.

Regards, Raymond

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Answer 6

Jan 22, 2016 7:10 AM in response to LaPastenague

Hi,

I am not familiar with the format names. I wrote on the drive without formatting it. The drive is 1 TB, and I have the same situation with a 2 TB drive of the same model. SP Armour 30,

Raymond

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Answer 7

Jan 22, 2016 2:29 PM in response to Hybrid from montreal

Ok.. I studied a review of the Armour 30 and they are preformatted FAT32.

But here is your problem.. FAT32 is going to have issues as various versions of windows and Mac use it differently.

Clearly something has happened and the change made by the connection to the AE means it no longer works on the computer.. I will have to explore what the actual issue is.. but large drives formatted FAT32 are a no no.

The test site formatted it NTFS to do testing.. because FAT32 is known to be fragile, and have issues with large files.

You are simply doing things the wrong way.. Apple designed the AE for Mac.. it is intended to be formatted Mac OS (HFS+) which is the only viable format available on the AE. You cannot natively read or write to HFS+ drives on a PC but if you really want to do this.. that is what I would suggest.