Hard Drive attached to Airport Extreme (AC) won't connect

I cannot connect to my USB hard drive which is connected to my new Airport Extreme (Wireless AC) router. If I unplug the hard drive, it seems to work for a bit. Then for unknown reasons, I am unable to connect to it.
It worked in 10.8 fine, I never had any problems until I just updated to 10.9 yesterday.
The official error I get is: "There was a problem connecting to the server 'Airport'. Check the server name or IP Address, and then try again. If you continue to have problems, contact your system administrator."

Two things to check:
1) The drive must be formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Use Disk Utility in the Applications > Utilities folder to verify.
2) The USB port on the AirPort Extreme is not a high powered port like you have on a Mac. It is often necessary to use a powered USB hub with any drive connected to the AirPort Extreme....even if the drive has its own power supply.
See this recent thread to verify:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/19398992#19398992

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I can't see hard drive attached to Airport extreme from Windows XP computer

I have a Windows XP computer on my network. I can no longer see the network hard drive attached to Airport Extreme from the XP computer. I can see it with all the MACs on my network and all the Windows 7 computers. I can connect to the internet with the Windows XP computer. I previously had no problem seeing the network hard drive attached to the airport extreme from the XP computer and one day it just disappeared. I have deleted and reinstalled Bonjour, not just Bonjour print services. I can print to a network printer that is not attached to the Airport Extreme. Help!

Well, I'm stumped. I spent an hour on the phone with Apple support-- they ran through the scenarios I had already been through, and they came up with nothing useful. I ended up taking a second 160gb HD that was formatted NTFS, and formatted if for HFS+. This drive was visible through Finder. I took the same drive, formatted it for FAT32 and, surprise, surprise, NOTHING VISIBLE.
The "just works" philosophy is OK, but it's bunk when it comes to network drive support. I'm doubting the wisdom of this purchase now.
$2500 for a computer that can't connect to a network drive that can be seen by an $500 Dell laptop?
The issue simply seems to be this: put a FAT32 drive on another box, and it can be shared by Macs and Windows boxes.
Put that same FAT32 box on an AirPort Express, and my Mac is BLIND. It can't see the drive.

Viewing files on a hard disk attached to airport extreme

I recently had issues with seeing a hard disk attached to airport extreme. The problem i had was that the hard disk had to be formatted in FAT-32 format which I did and fixed that problem. Now the data on that drive can not be accessed or modified from my PC ( windows 7) over the wireless network. When i look in my windows explorer the hard disk comes up on the network as airport drive Z and it has crosses in front of the files on the drive and a message that i do not have permission to access thes files. Any ideas would be appreciated in how to fix this. Thanks. darryl

Is there no way that time machine can delete the oldest back up when it becomes full?
Time Machine will automatically start to delete the oldest backups first to make room for new backups when the drive is full. It has worked this way since its introduction about 4 years ago.
The one thing that can throw this off is if the drive is near full, and you suddenly ask Time Machine to make a very large backup. Then, Time Machine can have problems, and you have to manually delete some older backups.
I thought about time capsule, but someone told me that it runs very hot and has no off switch.
Well, the Time Capsule is an AirPort Exreme in a larger case with a built in hard drive. My 4th Generation Time Capsule and 3rd Generation AirPort Extreme both run about the same, heat wise in my experience. If anything...the AirPort Extreme runs a bit warmer than the Time Capsule....if my hand is any kind of accurate indicator. And, as you know, the Airport Extreme does not have an "Off" switch either.
I spoke to a lady in the Apple store today about a bigger drive and asked her what will happen when it gets full. She suggested that then I get another one. Sounds pretty crazy to me!
Sounds like a salesperson....hoping that you will buy more stuff.

Does Time Machine support an external hard drive attached to Airport?

I was interested in setting up my external hard drive to my Airport Extreme base station and use Time Machine wirelessly. I have seen a few different answers on the forum and I'm wondering whether this is possible. (I do not have Time Capsule.) If so, can you provide an easy step by step as to how to set it up. Thanks!

Yes it's possible. Connect the drive and open Airport Utility. Click on the Manual Setup button. Then click on the Disks icon in the toolbar. Select the disk and turn on Sharing.
You can then open TM preferences where the shared drive should appear in the list of drives. If it does not show up then you will need to "mount" the drive by selecting Connect to Server from the Finder's Go menu, then double-clicking on the shared drive's icon to login as a registered user.
Note that this is not supported by Apple.

Can I share my external hard drive over the Airport Extreme via the internet to someone in a different city?

Can I share my external hard drive over the Airport Extreme via the internet to someone in a different city?

Yes. Please see the following AirPort User Tip for details on several methods to do so.

I have linked my seagate hard drive to my airport extreme but can not seem to find it in finder any ideas

Hi Help Please
i have just linked an external hard drive to my airport extreme but it does not seem to appear in finder under shared !!!! any ideas

i have plugged the hard drive into a usb router which in turn is plugged to to the AEBS it is visible in airport utility but then can not find it anywhere else!!
First, the drive must be formatted correctly to work at the USB port of the AEBS. That means a format of Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or FAT32. NTFS will not work.
You need to have a powered USB hub, even if the hard drive has its own power supply
Next, you may not have configured the Finder Preferences to display a connected hard drive. Please follow these steps:
o Click anywhere on the open desktop so that the Finder menus appear at the top of the screen
o Click Finder, then click Preferences
o Click the General tab
o Under the heading of "Show these itmes on the desktop", make sure you have a check mark next to Connected Servers
Restart both the AirPort Extreme and your Mac
Open Finder and check under the SHARED heading for your AirPort Extreme icon
Click on your AirPort Extreme and a folder will appear in the window to the right representing your hard drive
Double click the folder to mount the drive on the desktop
Hopefully, you are not planning to try to backup files using the Time Machine application, as this is not supported by Apple.

Apple TV to access photos and music from drive attached to airport extreme

I have photos and music stored on external drive attached to Airport extreme. I would like to access them from my Apple TV. I know that I can store them on a computer using iTunes but I do not want to keep the computer on.
Any help will be appreciated.

No. The Apple TV will ignore it.
(61807)

After connecting the Hard Drive to the airport extreme, where can I find the file location in Windows 7

After connecting the Hard Drive to the airport extreme, where can I find the File Location (to access my files from my Hard drive)

Hi,
Try this select to check backup history:
Select
r1.database_name,
r1.name,
(case r1.[type] when 'D' then 'Full database backup' when 'I' then 'Differential database' when 'L' then 'Transaction Log Backup' else r1.[type] end) as BackupType,
r3.physical_device_name,
r1.backup_start_date,
r1.backup_finish_date,
r1.backup_size,
r1.compressed_backup_size,
r2.is_compressed,
r1.server_name,
r1.first_lsn,
r1.last_lsn
from msdb.dbo.backupset r1
inner join [msdb].[dbo].[backupmediaset] r2
on r1.media_set_id = r2.media_set_id
inner join [msdb].[dbo].[backupmediafamily] r3
on r1.media_set_id = r3.media_set_id

Will a WD hard drive work with AirPort Extreme to connect with an iPad Air

Will a WD hard drive work with Airport Extreme to connect by a iPad Air

If you already have an AE and a WD drive .. the best idea is plug it in and see on a mac in airport utility is the drive recognised.
If not you have problems.. if it is formatted correctly (Not NTFS mainly) then it can be a drive that is not compatible.
assuming it works get your ipad and pay for filebrowser or at least download a test copy and see how it goes.
Always the best way to find out.. try it.

I have installed an external hard drive on my AirPort Extreme. How do I access it and tranfer photos and file to it from my Mac.

I have installed an external hard drive to my AirPort Extreme but cannot figure out how to transfer file/ photos, etc from my Mac, iPad or other IOS devices or to the hard drive. Any help?

From the Finder, go to the Go menu and select Network.

Using an external hard drive with an airport extreme and HP computer

- I recently bought the airport extreme, and also bought a Seagate external hard drive for my music files. I can see the hard drive on the airport utility but cannot access it or find where to access it. I am using an HP computer with windows 7.
Help please!

The AirPort Extreme cannot share out the attached Seagate USB hard drive if it is formatted in NTFS or ExFat. Please check to see that it is formatted in either FAT32 or HFS+ (Apple format).
If it is already formatted in either of the latter two formats, then verify that the AirPort Utility can properly identify the hard drive by using the AirPort Utility for Windows.
Finally please checkout the following Apple Support article for details on accessing this shared drive from a Windows PC.

How do you connect a usb printer and usb external hard drive to the airport extreme, as it only has one usb port?

I'm thinking about upgrading my old 802.11g router for a new airport extreme. Can it connect to a usb printer and external hard drive at the same time and acutally work. It only has one usb port on the back.
thank you!

To add multiple USB printers and/or HDDs, you just first need to connect a USB hub (powered prefereably) to the AirPort's USB port, and then, add the USB devices to the hub.

HT2426 Can't see my hard drive on my AirPort Extreme

I'm trying to set up a external HD as a share drive for the first time by connecting it to my Airport Extreme. I can't see my hard disk where it is supppose to show up in Finder under Shared. There's nothing. No Shared, no external HD. Anybody know why? The HD is good, it works when I connect it directly to my imac. Thanks

I'm currently having the same problem.
For a very long time, I've been using my Extreme with a 2TB external WD drive with seperate power supply.
Today I installed two old 2.5" drives ind a RAID1 enclosure, which I want to use for even more redundant back ups (NOT for speed).
But somehow my Extreme fail to see the attached drive.
I've tried ways of powering up and connecting in different stages, but nothing works.
When I unplug the enclosure from the Extreme and connect it directly to my Macbook, there seems to be nothing wrong. Drive shows up and everything seems to be working.
Anybody got a clue?

USB drive attached to Airport Extreme as a time machine backup?

I have a WD 750gb external USB drive that I was using as a "time machine" with my iMac. My Airport Extreme has a USB port and I want to move the WD over to there, but continue to use it as time machine. Possible to do this? If yes, then how?
Thanks much

You can, but Time Machine uses a disk image file for the Time Machine archive (instead of a folder) when a network drive is used. Therefore, you may have to start your Time Machine archive over again.
If you have one Mac to back up with Time Machine, it is better to leave the drive attached directly to the computer over USB. Your initial and hourly Time Machine backups will complete faster.

External hard drive networked via AirPort Extreme gives "The operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50)" roughly every two days

My lab has about 10 Mac computers. We all access a central hard drive by the way of wifi provided by AirPort. It's just a regular external hard drive (Seagate Desktop Drive) that I turned into our central storage space by plugging it into AirPort (USB). It works pretty well. We seem to be fine with viewing the file directories, opening files, saving, deleting etc., for a day or two. But then after a day or two, when when trying to modify files or move new files onto the central hard drive, we get the error message: "The operation can’t be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50)"
Any suggestions as to what may be causing this problem?
All of the computers are 2011 iMacs & MacPros. The AirPort is 802.11n WiFi. The hard drive is a Seagate USB 3.0 Desktop Drive.
Thank you for your insight/suggestions.

Thanks for your reply. I agree about the communication issue. Let me explain my setup and what I am trying to do and perhaps you can answer my questions or make suggestions.
I have a MAC Mini with a Sony TV for the video monitor. The Mac Mini is hard wired to the AE (Airport Extreme). The AE has a 2 TB HD hooked up to the USB Port. I have a 17" Mac Book Pro on the WIFI Network.
I am trying to use the MAc Mini as a "Media Server" of sorts. Once I get iTunes running the way I plan I am goign to hook up my Apple TV (2nd Generation) to my television downstairs.
What I am trying to accomplish is have iTunes on all my computers look to the External HD on the AE for the files. This is why I am having my (-50 errors).
So far I have noticed that if I go and try to download from iTunes purchased videos that are not ont he computer (to the external HD) it will also occassionaly give me teh -50 error.
Is there a way to change where the files go when I download them? Say I want to download videos to the computer but not to the external HD? However I would want to still be able to move them to the External HD.

Hard Drive attached to Airport Extreme (AC) won't connect

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