Backing up with time machine to a shared hard drive on a network

HI,
Here's my situation: I have a 2011 Macbook Pro, 2009 iMac, and the last generation Macbook that they made. All 3 computers have Lion. I have a WD 4tb ext hard drive that I had been using to backup my MBP and everything worked fine.  So, I decided i wanted to backup my iMac and Macbook to that same hd, which is obviously plugged into my MBP. It worked fine, both computers were able to backup simultaniously and all was great.
However, since I take my MBP with me places, the other computers wont backup when it isn't there (obviously). So, I decided to plug the ext hard drive into the iMac and use that as the central computer for the others to backup to (which makes way more sense). So, I formatted the drive (I didn't have any real need for any of the backups, and I wanted to start fresh), plugged it into the iMac, and set it up to be shared. I can backup to it from the iMac no problem, but I can't do it from either the MBP or the MB. I can access the hard drive on the laptops (mount it, copy and read files from it, ect), but when i go to set a backup disk in time machiine, it just isn't one of the drives to choose from.  In the old configuration, the networked drive appeared as a possible drive to backup to in time machine preferences with out any problem, so I'm not sure what's wrong!
Any help would be GREAT!

That's what it should be. Take a look at Pondini's Time Machine FAQ #22:  http://Pondini.org/TM/22.html
Also, make sure you are sharing via AFP and not SMB.

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