Airport Ex to print wirelessly

Question

I have just bought the Airport Extreme. My intention is to have it in my spare room next to a printer, and 2 backup drives (via a USB hub). My wireless router is in another room. So far I have been able to print and access the external hard drives in two ways, neither of which is the way I wanted.
First way: I managed to connect to my router with an ethernet cable, which allowed me to print and access my external drives (Finder, under 'Share')
Second way: I have been able to set up a separate network, but this isn't ideal either as I would have to swap between networks if I want to print / access hard drives, if I'm using the internet.
What I wanted to do was to have the AE wirelessly join my existing network, and use it only as a wireless connection to my printer / HD's. When I select 'Join existing network', and select my network, and enter my WEP key and encryption type, then update the settings, I lose all control of the AE, the LED blinks amber, and I have to reset the unit to be able to access it again. I have even tried connecting the AE directly to my MBP via ethernet, and accessing it through Airport Utility, but it doesn't find it. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Answer 1

Gary,
The AirPort Extreme is getting lost because it does not have the correct information to "join" the wireless network that you specified. It's probably a security related issue:
There are two basic forms of WEP security, 128 bit and 40 bit, also known as WEP 64.
In addition to that, password compatibility is very tricky among devices from different manufacturers. You need to have a 13 character password for WEP 128 bit and a 5 character password for WEP 40 bit to have the best chance for things to work.
So, I first suggest that you see whether the Airport Extreme is even capable of "joining" your wireless network (it may not be), by performing a quick test.
Temporarily, turn the security off on your main wireless and see whether the AirPort Extreme will join with no security. If it won't there's no point in spending hours trying to find a compatible security setting for both devices.
Please post back on your findings and we can discuss some other options.
By the way, WEP is no longer considered secure since it is easily cracked by programs readily available on the Internet, so you might want to rethink that as well.
Message was edited by: Bob Timmons