Is there any way to set up an Airport Extreme that had been previously used in a password protected network and the password was not provided by the seller ?

Question

Background -
My original Airport Extreme Base Station failed (would not connect to the modem). I purchased a similar, if not identical base station on eBay. Unfortunately, the purchased base station apparently was used in a password protected network. For what it is worth, my son gave me a Netgear wireless router, but it leaves a lot to be desired. For one thing, I use to keep the cable modem in the basement along with the Airport base station, with a printer connected to the USB port. The Netgear device does not have a USB port and also requires that the computer (in this case, the eMac) used to set up the network be connected to one of the ethernet ports. This meant I had to move the cable modem and router into my bedroom, a very undesirable situation. It then occurred to me that the original Airport base station Wi-Fi function might still work, and tested this hypothesis and sure enough, the Wi-Fi function does indeed work I currently have both base stations powered on, with my printer connected to the original. Both base stations appear under my Network icon, but neither Airport Utility 5.4.2 or Airport Administrator Utility 4.2 see either base station. I can select the original base station as my network, connect to the printer or even my other computers, but as soon as I try to select the new one, it asks for the password. I would like to somehow reset this base station and then redefine the network name and encryption.

Answer 1

I would suggest that you perform a "soft" reset on the AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBS) that you just got from eBay. This type of reset will temporarily (5 minutes) disable both the base station and wireless security passwords so that you can access it with the AIrPort Utility to make the necessary changes.