Airport Extreme Hard Drive + Printer

Hello,
When I was reading through the Airport Extreme features on the Apple site, it says that the Extreme supports both a Printer and an external Hard Drive connected to it via a USB hub.
When I launched Airport Utility to see if the HD and Printer was getting recognised I noticed that the printer is listed as a Hard Drive as well as a Printer?! and the actual Hard Drive is listed no where.
Any ideas how to solve this?
Thanks.

How was the problem solved?

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Airport extreme/hard drive problems

Any advice appreciated...
Our airport extreme only intermittently recognizes our Lace hard drive and it's driving us crazy. We bought macbook, the airport, and hard drive at the same time (yes we abandoned the PC world) and had a friend hook it up. For two months everything worked fine and we even hooked our printer to the airport and printed wirelessly.
Then for no particular reason, the harddrive disappeared and we can no longer access it wirelessly. We can, however, plug the harddrive USB into the Macbook and we can use the harddrive perfectly. Also, interesting, if we open airport utility and click on "disks", the harddrive is there, but it doesn't show up on the desktop or Finder and we can't access it.
I've called Apple tech support numerous times (We bought the extra service, but sadly that didn't keep us from having to spend an extremely obnoxious time on hold. We thought Apples were supposed to easy. but that's another story..). So far, we did get the airport and Macbook to recognize the hard drive by simultaneously renaming the harddrive and unplugging the hard drive and Airport. That worked for exactly 18 hours. Then the harddrive disappeared again. I called tech support twice but after 45 minutes on hold each time, I lost my patience. (They make us hold for the first step, then hold again for the product specialists. Gee we sure are glad we spent extra for the extended service!)
Other interesting tidbits: We've never had a problem with wireless internet service and have always been able to wireless send jobs to the printer.
Any ideas?
Signed and thank you,
Not so sure switching to Apple was a good move.

This is the most acceptable solution I have come up with:
Either go to the DHCP tab under internet settings on the router and "reserve" IP numbers for any hardware that interacts with the drive or manually set IP numbers in your network instead of using DHCP. The problem occurs when an IP number to any computer connected to the drive changes unexpectedly. This would be whenever the DHCP lease renews if your computer is asleep when this happens. I have not had a single drive issue since I set this up.
If you need to access your drive from a remote location where you don't have control over how the network there operates, then avoid letting your computer sleep while it is connected to the drive.
I chose to manually assign an IP number to my desktop and also to remote base stations, however this is not so convenient for my laptop because it then wants to use the manual settings everywhere unless I set up another "location" which has to be manually changed. This is where reserving IP numbers under the DHCP tab was really useful. The laptops on my network are still getting their numbers from the DHCP server but the server knows to give each one the same number based on their MAC addresses.
If you take a look at the default settings for DHCP, you will notice that not all the available numbers are being assigned through the DHCP server. You can use numbers outside this range (other than x.x.x.255) for your manually assigned IP numbers and still have DHCP running for when guests come over to use your network.
Message was edited by: Tom Alperin

Airport Extreme - hard drive set up for multiple computers in network

I have been having problems setting up my USB portable hard drive into the Airport Extreme. I am trying to set it up so that I can access the hard drive using both my Apple Laptop and my Windows desktop. Could someone assist me with this? or perhaps point me to the right how to link?
Thank you,
Raul

Check to see if the issue is with the following: In Windows double-click My Network Places. Select View Network Connections. Right-click on Local Area Connection and select Properties from the menu. Client for Microsoft Networks must be checked in order for any of the Apple disk software to work. If it isn't, check it and click OK.
After I did this I was able to use all Apple software as it was designed - everything just "worked".

Airport Extreme Hard Drive Going to Sleep

Hi,
I have recently purchased an Airport Extreme along with a 3tb WD My Book Essential hard drive and all was going swimmingly (and I was wirelessly backing up using time machine) up until the other day. Annoyingly the hard drive is going to sleep after an hour or so of inactivity and cannot be spun up again without being restarted at the hard drive itself instead of when the network needs it.
Is there any way of spinning the hard drive up over the network automatically when it wants to back up or I want to find a file on the hard drive? Do I need to buy a USB hub? Or would another solution work?
Thanks,
Henry

It sounds like the drive isn't working. I suggest you return it.

Is the Airport Extreme Hard Drive sharing ok for Time Machine?

With leopard on the eve of its release, I wanted to get a large network accessible storage solution that would allow my wife's and I's Macbook pros to use time machine on the network drive when we were at home. Since we rarely use our laptops while sitting at a desk connected to an external drive, I figured this would be a great idea and started to look into various NAS solutions.
Surprisingly, most generic (netgear, western digital) network drives require you use proprietary software to connect to them, and are only compatible with windows xp. After seeing the options the airport extreme opens up in terms of network storage I figured it would be the best bet.
Do you have any other suggestions besides getting an airport extreme? I would rather not have to buy a full blown mac that I have to leave on 24/7 to share the drives. Or do you see any possible pitfalls to this idea? Such as, would time machine forget to use the network drive after a while since it wouldn't always be available to it when away from home?

Unless the content of time machine is minuscule, USB will perform the worst at consistent data throughput. You might consider an ethernet storage device instead. The base station supports Gigabit Ethernet (though Wireless 'n' is maximised well below that).

Airport Extreme & hard drive to serve files to PC

Hi, I picked up a 640GB LaCie Hard Drive from my Apple Dealer to act as a NAS and share files among my PC's. My PC's can't see the area the files are saved on but can see the area that I formatted if I want to attach my Mac but that's only 40GB in size! LaCie gives you the option to format the drive for both Windows and Apple files. LaCie is suggesting the Extreme can't serve files to PC. That seems wrong. Can anybody help? Do I need to reformat the drive and copy the files to it again? Suggestions?
Thanks, Michele

Click here and follow the instructions. The image cannot be opened on a PC.
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Time Machine & Airport Extreme Hard Drive Questions

I purchased a LaCie 500 GB hard drive to use as a backup for Time Machine intending to attach it to my Airport 1802.n. It would not mount on my MacBookPro 3.1 and Time Machine didn’t see it. I could see the Drive using Airport Utility but not using Airport Disk Utility.
I then tried to get Time Machine to recognize LaCie by directly attaching it to my computer and let Time Machine use it for the initial backup (This is a painful way to operate!). After completing the backup, I reattached it to Airport and manually mounted it using “Connect to Server…”, the only way that it would mount.
I then entered Time Machine Perfs and Time Machine knew it was attached. So, I started a backup. Instead of using the LaCie, a disk image named Backup of Gene’s Mac appeared and Time Machine put a full backup on the image. My LaCie got a strange folder added named “NAME.sparsebundle”. It’s not sparse. The folder contains 21 GB. It is the size of the original backup. Ultimately, I rebooted and everything on the disk image went away. Time Machine now produces an error message when it tries to start. The message is “Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup directory. I handled this problem by turning Time Machine off and then rebooting. I dragged the disk image to the Trash and remounted the LaCie. I then turned Time Machine On and started a backup. The disk image reappeared and was loaded with all my backup.
Questions:
1. What is a “.sparsebundle”? Did Time Machine create the folder on the LaCie?
2. Could I move the files put on disk image to the LaCie without messing up the backup process? Could they be recovered if necessary?
3. Can anyone explain what happened when I went through the procedure described above?
- MacVet123

A sparsebundle is a 'bundle' ( that is, a folder which looks like a single file-- iPhoto library, and even Applications themselves are bundles ) which is a disk image . That is how TM backs up across AirDisk. It's not the same backup mechanism as if the disk were used locally. I can't help you past there but hope it works for you, I'm still not to that point yet.

Connect to Airport Extreme Hard drive

I have tried everything to see my USB hard drive. I have read many of the posts and have double checked my settings. The only thing I can see which might be the problem is the file system is NTFS. Is it possible to convert it to Fat32 an not distroy the data?
At this point I am not sure exactly how I am suppose to access this drive. Is it suppose to show up in my File explorer? Can I create a shortcut? Where do you go to see the contents of the drive?

Sewardsfolly, Welcome to the discussion area!
The only thing I can see which might be the problem is the file system is NTFS.
That is the problem. It needs to be formatted HFS+ or FAT32.
Is it possible to convert it to Fat32 an not distroy the data?
The best/safest method is to copy the data to another drive, reformat this drive, then copy all the data back.

Airport extreme hard drive password protecting files?

i share the hard drive with 2 others in my house and we each have folders in the drive with our names on them. i am new to a mac so forgive me if this is a stupid question. i was wondering if you could password protect folders on a hard drive?
thanks, aaron

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Set up a Windows formatted Drive as an Airport Extreme USB drive

I have a USB hard drive that was formatted as a Windows NTFS drive. The drive does not have data that I want to keep. I assume I have to format it as a MAC drive to use it as a Airport Extreme USB drive. What is the best way to set it up? Should I format it with the drive attached to my Macbook Pro or can it be formatted attached to the Airport? Are there any things I should be aware of in attaching this drive to the Airport?
Although I don't think it matters, this drive is a Vantec Nexstar MX400 enclosure with two 3TB hard drives configured as a 3 TB RAID 1. If anyone has additional information I should know about working with an MX400 RAID 1 drive in formatting it for a Mac it would be appreciated.

You need to format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), FAT16, or FAT32 while it's plugged into a computer. exFAT, NTFS, and non-journaled HFS+ won't work.
You may also need to use an USB hub with its own power supply.
(111341)

My Lacie Big Extreme Hard drive does not show connection speed

*My Concern*
Hi I have a Lacie Big Extreme Hard drive, which although works fine is not showing its connection, shows up in the system profiler as 'Connection Speed Unknown'. -Should I be worried? I have other drives connected to my G5 Dual 2 gig machine and no problem their they all show their connection speeds.
*Other Firewire 'Unknown Speed connection' related Problem*
I had a DVD LaCie Dual layer portable Firewire drive which recently suffered from the same problem and I had to send it back. This was due to it slowly developing a fault of not being able to burn dual layer disks properly.
*What I have done to try and remedy the situation.*
I have been able to do the following but I am afraid with no change in the system Profiler;-
1 Trashed the whole system and rebuild
2 repair my permissions
3 empty out all my caches with OnyX (third party app) version 1.8.5
4 Disconnected all drives and reconnected them one by one to see if there are any anomalies within the system
5 switched my G5 off removed the plug from the wall waited 30 sec for it to reset itself this was the 1st attempt. On my 2nd attempt I then cold booted the machine and reset Pram settings
6 used Tech Tools Pro 4 version 4.1.2
7. Replaced Power supply of the offending unit (didn't have to but I wanted to be safe and eliminate this fronm the equation.
9.tried changing around the order in the chain to which the drives were connected to the G5but alas no joy!
Summery
So my concern is if a device which is Firewire shows up in the system profiler as connection speed unknown should I begin to worry even though it appears to be functioning.
Thank you ahead of time for any help on this matter
*Supporting evidence*
Please see below a shot of my System profiler so you can see what I mean:-
*(Important Note)*
The Lacie Big disk has 800/400 Firewire connection speeds I have connected it straight to my G5s firewire 800 port then daisy chained the LaCie's via its other 800 port to the two other 800 Firewire Hard drives.
When the LaCie DVD DL drive was connected, I connected it straight to the 400 firewire port. As it needed direct access to the G5 for it to function optimally.
*System Profiler Info under OSX Tiger 10.4.11*
FireWire Bus:
Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec
LaCie d2 Extreme LUN 0:
Manufacturer: LaCie Group SA
Model: 0x0
GUID: 0xD04B710B061FB5
Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec
Connection Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
Sub-units:
LaCie d2 Extreme LUN 0 Unit:
Unit Software Version: 0x10483
Unit Spec ID: 0x609E
Firmware Revision: 0x102
Product Revision Level: P22O
Sub-units:
LaCie d2 Extreme LUN 0 SBP-LUN:
Capacity: 153.38 GB
Removable Media: Yes
BSD Name: disk2
OS9 Drivers: Yes
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
disk2s6:
Capacity: 153.38 GB
Available: 102.21 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: HFS+
d2 quadra (button):
Manufacturer: LaCie
Model: 0x4136
GUID: 0xD04B840A07A9A5
Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec
Connection Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
Sub-units:
d2 quadra (button) Unit:
Unit Software Version: 0x484944
Unit Spec ID: 0xD04B
d2 quadra Unit:
Unit Software Version: 0x10483
Unit Spec ID: 0x609E
Firmware Revision: 0x110
Product Revision Level:
Sub-units:
d2 quadra SBP-LUN:
Capacity: 465.76 GB
Removable Media: Yes
BSD Name: disk4
OS9 Drivers: No
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
disk4s3:
Capacity: 465.64 GB
Available: 250.79 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
LaCie Big Disk Extreme LUN 0:
Manufacturer: LaCie Group SA
Model: 0x0
GUID: 0xD04B741A058BFC
Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec
*Connection Speed: Unknown --------------------------**{this is where my concern lies}*
Sub-units:
LaCie Big Disk Extreme LUN 0 Unit:
Unit Software Version: 0x10483
Unit Spec ID: 0x609E
Firmware Revision: 0x102
Product Revision Level: 912
Sub-units:
LaCie Big Disk Extreme LUN 0 SBP-LUN:
Capacity: 931.52 GB
Removable Media: Yes
BSD Name: disk3
OS9 Drivers: Yes
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
disk3s6:
Capacity: 931.52 GB
Available: 181.67 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: HFS+

Hi BDAqua - thanks a lot for replying - really appreciate your help. I was using Time machine to back up on the old lacie drives that I have - I just backed up on both lacies and they backed up faster for some reason but that might have been because they were very small back ups as I did full back ups on Tuesday night - this is the info under the USB section > hardware > about my mac - it didn't show the speed like the example you gave me though but it still backed none the less :
USB Bus:
Host Controller Location: Built In USB
Host Controller Driver: AppleUSBOHCI
PCI Device ID: 0x0035
PCI Revision ID: 0x0043
PCI Vendor ID: 0x1033
Bus Number: 0x15
Bluetooth USB Host Controller:
Product ID: 0x8207
Vendor ID: 0x05ac (Apple Inc.)
Version: 19.65
Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Location ID: 0x15200000
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 0
I also got a reply back from WD on the hard drive and they said the following - exactly the same as you about it being a problem with the power supplied hence why the disk won't mount - so you were spot on - so I'm thinking I should go ahead and get the newertech 7 USB port 4 amps as you suggested - let me know what you think and then I'll just order it - and thank you - really do appreciate your help on this - thanks Jayas
Dear Jayas
Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support. My name is James.
If the drive is working fine on one system but failing on another especially with the "clicking" sound this is an issue with the system not being able to supply enough power to power the device.
These devices require power from the machine to make them operate if there isn't enough power supplied the drive will fail to work. This is why you are having no issues with one system but are on another.

Airport Extreme sporadically drops printer

Printer: HP DeskJet 6540
Base Station Firmware: Problem present on all firmware revs (most recent two or three)
Issue: At irregular intervals printing fails to the printer from wired and wireless clients. Going to the Airport Utility the Airport Extreme reports no printer.
Fix: In Airport Utility->Manual Setup->Printers uncheck the Bonjour checkbox, click "Update", wait for Airport Extreme to reset, printer reappears as connected, then recheck Bonjour checkbox. Printing works again. Seems to be occurring with greater frequency.
Anyone else seeing this, or is it my base station flaking out?

So I hooked the printer up to my iMac via USB and turned on printer sharing. Much more stable. Easier to manage. Still would prefer to use my Airport since it is an always on device. If anyone shuts down the iMac, the printer is no longer available.

I have a HP printer 8600 and airport extreme -- want to print from two computers - does not work

I just bought HP 8600 -- run Lion -- have airport extreme want to print wirelessly from both computers won't work

How are you trying to connect the printer - wirelessly or Ethernet or USB to the Airport?
Say thanks by clicking "Kudos" "thumbs up" in the post that helped you.
I am employed by HP

Hard drive, printer, PS3, etc to Airport Express

Hi guys. I have a few devices that I want to hook up somehow but am not quite sure how to go about it. I have some knowledge but when people provide highly technical responses, I sometimes get lost in it all so please go easy on me. I've already read several threads and I think I've gotten myself completely turned around so I thought I would ask you fine people.
For what it's worth, I have the old style of Airport Express that does NOT have the ethernet output port though that woud help to simplify things a bit if I did.
I currently have an Airport Express, a USB hard drive, a PS3, a macbook and a printer (non-wireless). I'd like to somehow get everything hooked up and playing well with each other. Currently the Macbook and AE work together just fine as does the iPhone. That's great.
The PS3 connects to the AE wirelessly as well but I'd like to find a way to get the PS3 connected to the internet via ethernet cable instead to speed it up a bit though this isn't a life or death sort of situation at all. I'm also not sure if doing so would make it so that my macbook couldn't stream to it wirelessly for movies and such.... ok... I've just answered my own question on that one. Nevermind the PS3 part. Wireless it is.
Now, the trouble that I'm having is logistics about where things have to be in my apartment. I have one cable outlet so the cable modem and airport express have to be in one particular corner. There is not room to put the printer over there too so I can't connect the printer directly to the airport express. I also know that I can't connect the hard drive to the AE directly (as much as I wish that were possible). What is the simplest and most affordable way that I can somehow get the printer AND the hard drive to be available wirelessly on my network while not at all being in the same physical location of my apartment? They'd need to be on the other side of the apartment.
I am ok with the idea of needing to add another device to handle the hard drive and printer (ie another wireless modem) though I don't know what would necessarily work with the existing AE well or what I should be looking for.
Thanks in advance for your help.

Here are some facts to consider:
1) Hard drive
The AirPort Express will not support a hard drive at its USB port. You need an AirPort Extreme for that type of functionality.
2) PS3
As you already know, in order to connect the PS3 using Ethernet, you will need the "new" AirPort Express with both a WAN and LAN port. The PS3 would connect to the LAN <-> port. An AirPort Extreme would work as well for this, as it provides 3 LAN ports.
3) USB Printer
The USB cable of the printer must connect to the USB port on the AirPort Express.
If you cannot locate the printer close enough to the Express to be able to connect to it, you will not be able to use the printer that you have.
In that case, consider a wireless printer to connect to the network wirelessly. Then, you can locate the printer anywhere you want as long as it is in range of the wireless signal.
I have one cable outlet so the cable modem and airport express have to be in one particular corner.
Leave the cable modem where it is. You can run an Ethernet cable any length that you need from the modem to the AirPort, so you can locate the AirPort anywhere the Ethernet cable will go. Cables come in 10 feet, 25 feet, 50 feet etc lengths in any color that you want.
For example, my modem is in the garage. The AirPort is in my office about 60 feet away.
Bottom line.....it sounds like you need an AirPort Extreme to handle the hard drive and the USB printer. You can use one of the 3 LAN ports to connect the PS3, and still have 2 available ports for future expansion.

IMac connected to Airport Extreme stopped detecting printer

Can't connect any more printer (Epson Stylus SX125) to iMac through Airport Extreme. Any solution?

GoldHill wrote:
USB Backup drive connected to USB port on Airport Extreme. Running system 10.5.5
On my Macbook Pro, which I connect wirelessly, I was able to start Time Machine... Time Machine saw the backup drive and did a backup.. Yes it took a long time!! Anyway all is cool with that.
My iMac is connected to the Airport Extreme by Ethernet. On the iMac when I started Time Machine, it does not see the backup hard drive. I can see and share the hard drive... works fine. But no luck with TM seeing the hard drive on the iMac.
Questions is will Time Machine work with a computer that is connected to airport extreme by ethernet. If yes how o you set it up and what might be wrong??
yes, it should work. hard to say what's wrong. try the following terminal command. it should not be necessary but it should help.
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1
One other important thing to mention. At first I plugged my new backup hard drive directly into the iMac with firewire 800. I started time machine and started the backup. I then stopped that backup and plugged the backup hard drive into the Airport extreme (USB port) I then trashed the partial backup folder off the backup hard drive. Is it possible that on the iMac there is still some TM file there pointing to the old original backup file??
have you emptied trash? you should. the files won't really be deleted till you do. there is one other hidden file but it should not be necessary to remove it.
Thanks.... any help is appreciated.

Airport Extreme Hard Drive + Printer

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