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.
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Similar Messages

Can't copy large files to airport extreme USB drive.

Hi Everyone,
I'm positng because I'm unable to copy large files to an AirPort Disk using Moutain Lion. I have the following setup.
AirPort Extreme:
- Firmware version: 7.6.3
- Airport disks secured by password
External Drive:
- Seagate 3TB External Drive connected to Airport Extreme thru USB
- Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Formated
Computers:
- MacMini(Mid 2010) - MacBookPro 13" Retina
- Both have Mountain Lion with latest updates
Airport Utility:
- Version 6.2
I am using the drive for a backup of .mv4 files. Files up to 4g transfer just fine. Files over 4g will get all the way to the end and throw a -36 error. If I plug it into my mac the files copy just fine. I have googled the issue and get all of these fat32 and win7 issues. Not really relevant from what I can tell.
I have also connected other drives the the Airport formatted the same and get the same problem.

That's not entirely unusual as using that port on the AEBS for backup is an iffy business, especially if you are trying to use Time Machine which is completely unsupported by Apple.
There may well be something wrong with the file you are trying to transfer, hence, the -36 error. I have no solution for you. Generally, there is no suitable solution. If you get the error while trying to copy several files at once, then try doing one file at a time which sometimes works. Archiving may enable you to transfer the archive, but then dearchiving on the destination may not work.
You can check the filename length and look for illegal characters or just rename the file, if possible. And, don't overlook the possibility that the file itself is corrupted even if it does not appear to be so from outward appearances. Lastly or firstly, try transferring the file to the external drive hooked up directly to the computer instead of the AEBS.

Access external hard drive connected to Airport Extreme USB via Windows & Mac

I have an Airport Extreme and I would like to connect an external hard drive to it via USB so that I can backup pictures, music, documents etc. I need to be able to see the external hard drive from my windows PC. I eventually will be buying a Mac so I would like to be able to also get to my pictures and documents via the MAC as well.
I currenlty have an iPhone, iPad and Apple TV so getting to the external drive from these devices would be a huge bonus also if that is possible.
I recently bought an ioSafe Solo External Hard Drive and I had to return it because it was only formatted for the PC. When I plugged it into my Airport Extreme, I could see the drive via the Airport Disk Utility but I could not see it from my PC and I could not map a drive to it. When I contacted ioSafe support, they said that what I was trying to do was not possible since I did not have a MAC available to me to reformat the drive.
I hope that I am not trying to accomplish the impossible because I will always need to live in a MAC/PC world.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time!

You must know people with Macs.. it is 2min work to plug a USB drive into a Mac Laptop and format it Mac OS extended with a quick format.. And that is better IMHO than buying a utility or buying a pre-formatted drive which are often more expensive for no very good or obvious reason.
Another option is a Linux boot disk.. Linux distributions have very similar command line tools to the Mac OS. (some are identical) and HFS+ has been available for ages in Linux.

IPhoto 7 Will Not Share File on Airport Extreme USB Drive

I have a USB drive plugged in to my Airport Extreme (n). I keep both my iPhoto 7.0.1 Library and my iTunes 7.3.2 Library on that drive. I am able to share the iTunes Library just fine from two machines. But if I open the iPhoto Library on one machine it works fine - but when I try to open iPhoto from the other machine I get a 'locked file/locked disk/inadequate permissions' alert. Have repaired permissions from iPhoto boot window - and the disk/file is not locked. I used to be able to share the iPhoto Library on this disk prior to iPhoto 7. Anyone have a suggestion as to how to cure this?
Thanks, Tuck

Sure, I'll explain. Actually this is how network shared drives are supposed to work from what Apple's promotional material says. I have both my iTunes Library and my iPhoto Library on a USB drive connected to my Airport Extreme so that both my wife and I can share the music and the pictures. We will often listen to different things at the same time on iTunes - which will make sense to you as that activity is really only a read. But I can add and delete music at the same time that she listens. With iPhoto we both can look at different pictures at the same time - I suppose just like iWeb can import photos at the same time I am running a slideshow in iPhoto. My problem is that this ability broke during my upgrade to iPhoto 7.0.1 - although it is possible this happened during 10.4.10 and I didn't notice, but I don't think so. As I have mentioned above I now find that I can create a NEW iPhoto Library and be able to share it on both machines again. So - my current question is: can I copy the contents of my old iPhoto Library into a newly created library and retain all the edits, events, titles, rankings, etc? And if so, is there any trick to it.
Regards, Tuck

Airport Extreme + USB Drive Disconnecting after first Timemachine backup

Hello,
This is the setup;
* Mac Book Pro's 15" and 17", both early 2009 release, 10.5.8
* Airport Extreme 7.4.2 with
* Lacie 1TB Poullon USB Drive
I've made the AP Usb-drive as the Timemachine drive. It always manages to do one back up but during the next backup the drive disconnects and I have to reboot both the macbook and ap to get it connected again.
Airport isn't working that good all together - the max speed on WiFi I get is 25Mbps, eventhough with a LAN wire connected to AP I get 97Mbps. The Airport is set up to run with 802.11n only 5Ghz, multicast rate 6 Mbps, 25% transmit power and with wide channels.
Could someone tell me which kind of setup is the best and why does the drive keep disconnecting during the second backup?

Im having similar problem and have a lacie drive? i have great performance from the router and my iphones however.
I dont have to reboot the MBPs. i unplug and plug the router and then reconnect the drive in the finder then go to time machine and reselect the drive and it works then fails at some point. happens on all my drives. could be a time machine problem could be an airport problem. could be the disk going to sleep.
I think its time to call apple and report the problem.
I am going to try and connect the drive to the laptops for a day and see if it does the increments directly.

Airport Extreme + USB Drive Disconnecting after one backup

Hello,
This is the setup;
- Mac Book Pro's 15" and 17", both early 2009 release, 10.5.8
- Airport Extreme 7.4.2 with
- Lacie 1TB Poullon USB Drive
I've made the AP Usb-drive as the Timemachine drive. It always manages to do one back up but during the next backup the drive disconnects and I have to reboot both the macbook and ap to get it connected again.
Airport isn't working that good all together - the max speed on WiFi I get is 25Mbps, eventhough with a LAN wire connected to AP I get 97Mbps. The Airport is set up to run with 802.11n only 5Ghz, multicast rate 6 Mbps, 25% transmit power and with wide channels.
Could someone tell me which kind of setup is the best and why does the drive keep disconnecting during the second backup?

Im having similar problem and have a lacie drive? i have great performance from the router and my iphones however.
I dont have to reboot the MBPs. i unplug and plug the router and then reconnect the drive in the finder then go to time machine and reselect the drive and it works then fails at some point. happens on all my drives. could be a time machine problem could be an airport problem. could be the disk going to sleep.
I think its time to call apple and report the problem.
I am going to try and connect the drive to the laptops for a day and see if it does the increments directly.

Itunes library on airport extreme usb drive is gone (or hidden)

i cant figure out why my entire library on my hard drive is gone. my music is stored in a folder called "music" on the networked harddrive. i have 1000 artists in my itunes library, but for some reason, only 156 show up in the finder app. when i play them from itunes they play, so i know they are somewhere, and from itunes, when i select a song and then "get info" on a song, it shows where its supposed to be, but its not there in the finder. is is possible that they are invisible for some reason. from itunes "show in finder" brings up a blank finder screen but the song still plays. any ideas?

Sure, I'll explain. Actually this is how network shared drives are supposed to work from what Apple's promotional material says. I have both my iTunes Library and my iPhoto Library on a USB drive connected to my Airport Extreme so that both my wife and I can share the music and the pictures. We will often listen to different things at the same time on iTunes - which will make sense to you as that activity is really only a read. But I can add and delete music at the same time that she listens. With iPhoto we both can look at different pictures at the same time - I suppose just like iWeb can import photos at the same time I am running a slideshow in iPhoto. My problem is that this ability broke during my upgrade to iPhoto 7.0.1 - although it is possible this happened during 10.4.10 and I didn't notice, but I don't think so. As I have mentioned above I now find that I can create a NEW iPhoto Library and be able to share it on both machines again. So - my current question is: can I copy the contents of my old iPhoto Library into a newly created library and retain all the edits, events, titles, rankings, etc? And if so, is there any trick to it.
Regards, Tuck

Airport Extreme & USB Drive: Difference in ways to access the drive?

Hi, sorry for the lengthy explanation:
I have an Airport Extreme (Firmware 7.4.1) with an external hard drive attached. Settings are so it is shared (but password protected) on the home network as well as over the internet (via bonjour).
I see two ways how I can connect and mount my disk:
1. Airport Disk: Only works when on the home network, in Finder I go to "shared", find the disk and connect to it. The Icon on the Desktop will look like a Drive that has the Airport bars on it.
2. Server: Works from Home Network and the Internet. In finder, I "go to server" and put in my IP address. When mounted, the Icon will look like a drive with three people holding hands on it.
My question: What is the difference?
I am using third party backup software (Crashplan.com) to back up to this drive. When using method 1, backups work fine, when using method 2, backups fail. Otherwise I have access to all the files on the drive using either method.

Hi Don,
Could it be that they are using different technologies to mount the disk?
Maybe the first method uses AFP while the second method used WEBDAV??
Also, which IP address are you using? The external address (your public IP), or the internal address of your router?
David

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".

How to access a USB disk drive connected to Airport Extreme from a Windows 7 PC?

How can I access a USB disk drive connected to Airport Extreme from a Windows 7 PC?

...Called it a roaming network. Wireless mode is create a wireless network. I have checked allow this network to be extended. Probably need to uncheck that?
Yes, that option should be deselected as it only pertains to when both routers are interconnected by wireless. Since you have a roaming network, they of course, would be interconnected by Ethernet.
The other important settings for a roaming network are:
Each router must have a unique station name. For the AirPort, this would be called its Base Station Name. I believe the default station name for Linksys routers is: linksys
Each router must broadcast a wireless network with an identical Network Name. For the Linksys, Network Name is the same as its SSID.
Each router wireless network must use the same Wireless Security type and password. The Linksys WRT-54G is capable of up to WPA2 Personal. If you have it set to this level of security, the AirPort should be at the same setting.
Make sure that each router is not on the same Radio Channel for the 2.4 GHz radio. In the US, there are basically only three non-overlapping channels: 1, 6, or 11. Set each so that they don't use the same channel but use of those three choices.

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.

Airport Extreme usb hard drive connection loss after closing finder window

I just did a software update on my MacBook Pro and now I am experiencing a weird Airport Extreme usb hard drive issue. I can see the name of my airport extreme in the Shared section of my finder window. However when I click on it, the finder indicates the it's connecting, but it stops immediately and displays the 'Not Connected' message. When I click on the 'Connect As' button, I am prompted to enter my password and if I click 'Connect', it just spins out endlessly. However, when I re-enter the password and press Connect, my usb drive mounts. I can view, access and use the drive's contents, but if I close the finder window, the connection drops and I have to re-connect. What else is weird, is that once I see my drives, the finder indicates that I am connected as another user(not a user native to this computer). This issue did not exist before my software update.
My software log update indicates that the following items have been installed:
Canon Printer Software Update 2.3 and Security Update 2010-003.
I suspect it has something to do with the Security Update. Is there a way I can revert to the previous security version? Or is there any other solution that could help me avoid re-connecting to my airport extreme usb hard drives?
I will really appreciate any feedback.

Free Solution:
Sure there's a »fix« with Apple software. You'll need to install the Developer Tools (Xcode) from the Snow Leopard Install DVD, though.
After you've done that, you can use "SetFile" to clear the Alias bit from the misbehaving Volume:
/usr/bin/SetFile -a a /Volumes/<YourExternalDriveName>
Please keep in mind that using this command might be dangerous, so don't try this solution unless you feel confident on the command line. (See http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/m an1/SetFile.1.html or invoke /usr/bin/SetFile without arguments for more info on the SetFile command.)
...a similar discussion and answer can be found at: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2131824&start=45&tstart=0

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

Time Machine fails with drive connected to Airport Extreme

First of all, I've had myriad problems with Time Machine, even when it was connected directly to my MBP. But after the recent updates, I installed them and hoped it would work wirelessly. I re-formatted my 120GB OWC drive (my MBP has 30GB available of 120GB). I have already been down the road of making sure I've formatted the drive correctly.
I excluded my system folder, my entourage identity, downloads, and my Parallels Windows XP file from the backup. I connected the drive to my Airport Extreme (not the gigabit version) and started the backup. Basically, it gets about 5 GB into the backup, moving very slowly, and then fails, saying that it couldn't locate the drive. And that part is true--I can't seem to locate the drive on my network anymore either. And eventually, after another hour or so, my Airport Extreme drops as well, and isn't even available. Even when I unplug the AE, and plug it back in, it still doesn't show up...but after about an hour or so...it pops back up and is available, working fine. My iPhone sees the same problem with AE dropping and then coming back. When the wireless service drops, I can plug an ethernet cable into the AE and I can access the internet fine, so it's not the cable modem (Time Warner).
Is anyone else seeing this problem? I'm no guru and appreciate that Macs just seem to work correctly. But Time Machine is making me pull my hair out. It's been an unmitigated disaster from start to finish.
Appreciate any help!

This is probably the most sensible post I've read on the issue. I've spent the last 2 days trying to get my 500GB LaCie Quadra hard drive to work with my Airport Extreme (the square one, yes .
I've formatted it correctly with the Disk Utility (multiple times!).
Airport Utility sees it just fine. I can back up to it when it is connected directly to my MacBook via USB.
But when the drive is connected via USB to the Airport Extreme, Time Machine doesn't see it -- unless I turn on file sharing with guest access read and write. That seems less-than-secure to me even if my network is protected.
Without guest access the drive appears in the shared section of the Finder, but I can't connect to it. I've tried all three combinations under "Secure Shared Disks" but none of them work.
Seems like its just too flaky to use an external disk connected to the Airport Extreme.
Happy to be pointed in the right direction... are there specific file permissions I should be setting my external drive to?
Thanks,
Rich

Is it possible to allow others to access my airport Extreme's drive via t

I have read the threads about my accessing the USB drive on my Airport Extreme via an AFP connection...and it works. Without a hitch! BUT....
I would like to allow others (who are not on my home network) to access this same drive (with some level of security). Is THAT possible and if so, how? I have 2 partitions on this HD, one is a mac-formatted partition and the other is a FAT32 for PC user access. Or course, each partition has a unique name so, depending on the user, they would access either the Mac or PC formatted partition.
BTW, I did some thread-checking but all seem to find are one's that show how to I can make a connection to my own drives away from the home, NOT someone who is not associated with my home network to make the same connection to the USB drive on my APE.
I am running OSX 10.5.6 and the APE is running 7.4.1 firmware. the APE was purchased in 2008.
Thank you, in advance.

So here is how it is done if you want a PC user to access the USB drives on your Airport Extreme.
1. Start up the APE Utility software
2. Set the APE up with WAN sharing of the USB drives, and take note of the admin user ID and password for the APE and also the APE's IP address.
3. Go to a PC connected to the internet and open up 'My Computer"
4. In the address line in "My Computer" type in
\\XXX.XXX.XXX substituting the X's for your APE's IP address
5. you will get prompted for the admin user ID and password for the APE. This may take a few seconds so be patient.
6. You should now have access to the drives from a Windows PC.
---> This will work best if you have a STATIC IP for your APE.
Cool!

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

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