Incompatibility Issues with connecting USB Hard Drive to Airport Extreme

Over the last few days i have been fiddling around with my new Airport Extreme Base Station N router. I can connect a printer and use the internet through it seamlessly. I can even share two of my hard drives through a USB hub, however, my Maxtor 500 gb One Touch 4 HDD will not connect with my macbook through AEBS. It is only this drive that is not working with AEBS and it is the one i need to be connected and sharing. If i plug my 500gb Maxtor directly into my macbook it works fine, i can read all the files. This drive is formated as Mac OS Extended (journaled).
I am about to give up on this because i have tried everything:
1. Reformatted HDD
2. Downgraded Firmware
3. Searched Forums for advice
4. Reconfigured AEBS in, i think, every way possible
So, these are most of the things ive tried and so far there is no solution in sight. I have one hypothesis: my particular HDD (Maxtor 500gb One Touch 4) is incompatible with AEBS at this time, but it is possible that a future firmware update could fix this.
Does anyone have any advice? I'm lost and disappointed. Please help, thanks.
Message was edited by: benjaminwooda

Chances are pretty good that the power draw of your external drive is just at the "tipping point" for what the USB port on the Extreme can deliver. Powered USB hubs are inexpensive and should help in this situation.

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The USB port your Mac is high powered. The port on the AirPort Extreme is not.
So, it tends to be borderline as far as its ability to supply sufficient power to a hard drive...even if the hard drive has its own power supply.
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http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html
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OK, I feel silly on this one.
After looking for issues with the airport and not finding any and needing a file from my backup drive, I had to connect it up to my PC. That's when I found my solution.
The Drive I had connected had stopped responding. That's why the Airport was not showing it and not allowing connections. I had power cycled the drive a few times while testing, just not long enough. I unplugged the drive for 2 minutes, all cables, then reconnected. After about 5 minutes, the Airport was able to confirm the drive and turned the share back on.
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Message was edited by: Robert81

most likely 14m/sec but normally 10.5 this is ethernet wired and usb attached. wireless would be about 8M/sec
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Short Summary: I reformatted my 300Gb external hard drive to Mac Extended format (not journaled) with 3 separate partitions: Photos, Music, and Backup Files. Plugged the HD into the AirPort base station and then ran the AirPort Disk Utility (HD accessed via base station password) and place the AP Disk Utility icon on the task bar. I clicked on the icon, entered my password, and the three partitions appeared on my desktop. I am now able to read/write to the HD with both Mac computers and my Windows computer (loaded with the windows version of AP Utility software) via my wireless network.
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Initial Setup: I shut down all computers and replaced my old AP extreme with the new one. I plugged in the SeaGate HD to the AP base station, turned on the AP then turned on the HD. Turned on my PowerBook (PB) Pro, loaded the new AP software and was connected to the internet with no problem. Similar to other posting on this topic, my external HD was not visible despite running AP Disk Utility.
Follow on troubleshooting: The HD was formatted in Mac Extended (Journaled) and had 9 GB of data that was stored via USB wire directly from my PB Pro. I transfered the data to my PB Pro via USB and then, using the standard OS10 Disk Utility application, reformatted the HD in Mac Extended (Journaled) with 3 partitions. I reconnected the HD to the AP base station and ran AP disk utility again. Lo and behold, the 3 partitions showed up on the desktop of my PB Pro. I loaded the AP software onto my iMac and Windows Computer and they both recognized the HD. I successfully op tested file transfer via the wireless network (about 2.5 MB/sec data transfer rate).
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I have heard that Airport Extreme only recognizes drives formatted with FAT32
The AirPort Extreme can't read NTFS drives.
which doesn't help me much because there is no way to format an FAT32 partition larger than 32 GB
Yes, there is. Click here and follow the instructions, or use a Mac to format the drive.
(46682)

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Hi all,
Hopefully someone can help me.
I have a Macbook Pro (2009). Recently put on Lion and have had no problems until now. Last night, the computer could not see the USB HD that is plugged into our Airport Extreme that it was using for the time machine backups. HOWEVER, our Macbook (white 2007) which is also running Lion has no problems accessing the HD! The Airport is working fine as we can still access email, the internet and my NAS drive (D-link 323).
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http://discussions.apple.com/help.jspa#terms
Near the bottom
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Message was edited by: Karlhan

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Message was edited by: marvinclick

marvinclick wrote:
But why there is no drive nor icon shows in Find after it connected to Time Capsule?
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Incompatibility Issues with connecting USB Hard Drive to Airport Extreme

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