Suddenly can't share external USB drive

I have all of my iTunes music on an external USB drive called 'iTunes_Drive', attached to my G5 iMac in the basement. For a long time, my wife would just run iTunes on the G4 iMac in the living room and play music through the Shared Libraries feature. However, this is slow to start up each day, so I came up with the idea of just sharing the external drive, and having her maintain her own library based on the music in the shared drive.
Just today, it became impossible to access this shared drive from the G4. Interestingly, when I shared a FireWire external drive with the same settings, then that drive WAS visible as an available shared folder when connecting from the G4.
Rebooting both computers hasn't changed anything. The firewall on the G5 is turned off, and it's allowing AFP, SMB and FTP sharing of the drive. The G4 CAN mount the iTunes_Drive using SMB, but iTunes doesn't recognize it as the same drive (possibly because under SMB it's called "ITUNES_DRIVE:" whereas in AFP it's "iTunes_Drive").
Is there something new in security which is preventing AFP sharing of external USB drives? Neither googling nor searching through this forum has turned up anything that helps me.
I should note that the G5 is running Leopard 10.5.1, and the G4 is running Tiger 10.4.11, and I just ran Software Update on both computers last night, with the attendant reboots this morning.

I've experienced a similar problem with my two external hard drives connected to my AirPort Extreme Base. Since installing yesterday's security update, I can no longer see either hard drive. From my Shared folder in Finder, it's now constantly in 'Connecting' mode. I've tried rebooting and checking everything to no avail.
Any help out there would be appreciated.

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Can i include external usb drives in Time Machine backups

Can I include external usb drives and sticks in Time Machine backups?
This was the question I searched a week for. My machine is a MBAir with Yosemite. I have a bunch of USB HD and sticks. This is a sharing of what it took to solve. I lost a couple of important document revisions lately because of not having differential backups on them, so wanted to include them in Time Machine.
Yes it can, I found. But it's a wee bit backwards. And apparent inconsistencies drive you crazy. Time Machine is supposed to do this by default, and wants you to tell it what NOT to include. Trouble is, formats create many troubles.
But the USB sticks and HD's you buy are PC formatted. And you'd like to share, as the Apple does with FAT16, FAT32, and exFAT (to overcome the 4G size limit on the others). Even NTFS can be plugged in and be read-only. Turns out you just can't incorporate into TM backups.
Open Time Machine Options, and look at the drives listed in the exclusion window. Drives that you know to be plugged in and registered by Finder, may or not be registered in the exclusion window, and if registered and their icons may be bright or dimmed. Bright will NOT be included. Dimmed are excluded. Normally the operation is to use the or to exclude these drives from your next BU operation. (this instruction is lost the next time in manual mode). So if a drive or stick is shown and is bright it WON'T be backed up. If you it from the window, then it will grey out and WILL be backed up. If it's not there to offer you exclusion, you can browse to such a file or device so you can exclude it. TM's exclusion window will show the PC formats: FAT16, FAT32, and exFAT greyed out (as not included). NTFS is bright looking like it might work, but when doesn't dim, it disappears, and is ignored in the actual BU.
Sources are supposed to be included in the backup if it isn't shown bright in the exclusion window. In this respect I only use TM manually, and not for programmed BU's, so I cannot speak to that.
If everything you have is formatted for the Apple disc system (Mac OS Extended) then there are no contradictions or partial equivalences. The mounted disc or stick will show in TM exclusions window, and if you it, you'll see it in the Time Machine pile of calendared directories, with all the files. And of course it will do the differential backups for it that we use TM for in the first place. Just remember to prepare the BU by not excluding.
BUT NOW THE VARIABLES. It now depends upon the formats. I use the Paragon NTFS program to permit writing NTFS. (Apple can normally read but not write NTFS). Paragon is lovely because for normal computer use, I can read and write both Apple and PC files and disc formats in Finder (for 3 years now). But Time Machine cannot be reached by Paragon so it's NTFS behaviors are outrageous. Paragon reaches Disk Doctor so you can read, write, format and heal both Apple and PC formats. And this really confused things respecting Time Machine. I literally worked through every variable, from stick to disc to prove what did work, and when false appearances of working showed up.
Respecting that very Time Machine display of Finder windows piled backwards through time there's a confusing bug. When first opened, TM shows NOW as the current setup and works just like a Finder window in present time. And the outboard discs and sticks show as in Finder. BUT working back in time, the left window DOES NOT SHOW THE CONDITIONS AT BACKUP but rather in all left windows shows the present setup. So you need to work from the right hand side dates and times to go back and see when you had that stick or HD plugged in. And then, finally, you will see the files you wanted saved. But if there is a stick on the left than TM doesn't like but Finder likes you'll see it left but nothing will be in the files. Clicking on the pretender just jumps to the root.
My Disk Doctor provisions (with Paragon) show, Mac OS Extended (Journaled), Mac OS Extended (Case Sensitive Journaled), MS-DOS (FAT), exFAT, Windows NT Filesystem, Windows NT Filesystem (compressed). It's a better utility than in Microsoft and I use it for such maintenance.
Bottom line, I like TM very much. 2 years ago I lost my air and TM was able to reconstruct my machine many times in the course of the troubleshooting - all the way from the start to the last without ever missing a beat or a file. So I accept this limitation and make copies to another HD formatted in NTFS when I work on PCs.
Hope's this sorts out being lost in the desert for a few of you.
Jock
<Personal Information Edited by Host>

Storing normal data files on the Time Capsule is unfortunately not as easy as dropping the folder on the Time Capsule.
Open up Macintosh HD on the Mac
Look for the SHARED heading on the left
Click on the Time Capsule icon and a folder named "Data" will appear (unless you have renamed it)
Double click the "Data" folder to mount the drive on the desktop. You may need to enter the device password for the Time Capsule when you do this the first time
Once the drive icon is on the desktop, you can drag data to the icon and drop it there. Double click the icon to open up the drive and see the files

Can't access external USB Drive

I have a Seagate external USB drive that I'm trying to access. This drive has not been used in awhile, but as far as I know it ok.
When I plug it into my G4, and power it up, it never comes up on the desktop. Instead, I get a message saying "the disk you have inserted is not readable by this computer", and gives me the choice of "initialize", "ignore", or "eject".
This drive has worked in the near past. Why do I now not seem to be able to access the data on it?
I tried a "restart" with the external drive hooked up, but get the same message. I really don't think the drive is bad.
Is there any way I can force the computer to recognize an external drive?
Note: System Profiler sees the drive, but it just never mounts.

Hi Japamac, good to speak with you again. You have helped me in the past.
Sorry for the repeated posts in multiple forums. I've been desperately trying to figure this out, and was looking for maximum views of my problem.
A couple of days ago, I was able to get this drive to mount making me believe that is (was?) formatted for Mac. Nothing that I know of has changed since then except that now the drive will not mount.
Disk Utility sees the drive, but verify disk and all other choices are greyed out. Clicking on "mount disk" also has no affect.
Under disk utility, I clicked on the "info" tab for the external drive, and under "Partition type" it says "WindowsFat32" but I don't know what might account for that if the drive is Mac formatted.
My primary concern is if the data on this disk is still ok. If it can still be accessed on a PC, I can get together with a PC owner this weekend.

How to share external USB drive connected to airport time capsule

I have a 4TB Seagate USB Hard Drive connected to my Airport Time Capsule. The Time Capsule connected to a newer iMac running Maverick.
I use the Time Capsule for Time Machines Backups and as a Router, as it was designed for.
I want to use the external Seagate drive to share content with other devices (Mac, IOS, Windows) on my home network
Problem: I cannot figure out how to SHARE the external Seagate drive so that any other devices can see it.
Steps tried: Go to System Preferences, Sharing, and I am unable to add this Seagate drive to list of sharable objects. It is grayed out.

the drive is formatted as AppleShare. Is that a potential problem?
No, that is the correct setting if you want to share out the drive.
Finally, when I run Disk Utility I don't see the Seagate drive (nor the Time Capsule) at all.
Remember that the Time Capsule is a network drive. Any other drive connected to the USB port on the Time Capsule is also a network drive.
Disk Utility cannot be used on a network drive. It only works on a drive that is directly attached to a Mac. If you need to partition the USB drive or something similar, you will need to connect it directly to your Mac for the operation.
Otherwise, everything looks correct in AirPort Utility.

Can't use external USB Drive

Hello
I have 500 GB Hitachi usb drive , it was working fine until now, i can see the disk in disk utility, but i can't format it. I tried to repair the partition but it failed, now the partition dissapear but i still can see the disk in disk utility list, when i try to format it, after few minutes i get this:
Disk Erase failed with the error:
Couldn’t open device."
and previously i got this when formatting partition only:
Disk Erase failed with the error:
Couldn’t open device."

For SMART checking, I understand that has been a problem with external drives.
Looks like there may be a combination solution here and here.
Any help from drive manufacturer site?
Have you reformated it before? Some drive mfrs write invisible partitions for Windows.
I had one drive once which I had to reformat as FAT32 and erase before I could reformat as Mac OS Extended.

Can I swap external usb drives to keep a backup offsite?

I'm switching to a mac and I want to keep 2 usb drives for backup. One drive for hooked up doing the current backup and a second to put in it's place (probably weekly) to maintain a backup offsite.
Aside from the obvious changes week to week, can Time Capsule/Time Machine be set up for something like this. I'd like to know before I spend $500+ on hardware.
If this won't work, do you have any suggestions?

Time Machine is an extremely complex piece of software.. far more so than I first imagined.
It is well worth reading the Pondini KB to understand what it does and how.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html is very useful. Troubleshooting.
But he has more info under the home about what TM does. It is helpful to understand it .. even if just skimming, so you know where to look.
http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
I will also make a recommendation that you do a disk image or disk clone with a different software. It can still be loaded onto the USB drives.. and it doesn't need to be done often. But it will get you out of trouble quickly.. and there are excellent free ones.. I think superduper will do a full disk image.. from inside the Mac OS.. but I would use a tool like clonezilla.. free download linux based tool but with simple menus.. (you don't have to recompile the kernel). That is on a bootable CD or USB stick. That means if things break you are quickly back to exactly where and when the image was taken.. TM can then get back the incremental backups.

Can't find external USB drive

Okay, I can't figure out why or exactly when it occured, but I realized I can't access my external LaCie drive through my Airport Extreme. I never had any problems with it before, but maybe after installing an update or something, it has now made it inaccessable. I can see the drive in the Airport Utility, but when I can't mount it onto the desktop or use it at all. When the Airport Disk Utility tells me that its available and I try to connect to it, it tells me "Connection Failed". Also, if I try to connect to it through the Finder, it tells me it can't locate the alias for the Aiport base station to which I have the drive connected. It all totally confuses me. I can't really tell where the problem lies. I'm having no problem connecting to the internet through the Airport, but I can't mount the drive from it. Aargh!

Hi John, and welcome to the discussions!
For the busted alias, might try...
Finder>Preferences>Sidebar>Show Network Icon... toggle this OFF then On... sometimes a re-boot between the two helps.
But first, use Disk Utility to repair permissions... a good idea both before and after any update/upgrade.

Can I share a USB drive connected to Airport Express

I know that you can with the Extreme Base Station. Just curious if a drive connected to the
Express would show up as a shared network drive

pgoodwin wrote:
Just curious if a drive connected to the Express would show up as a shared network drive
no.
airport express does not support connecting external drives to it. essentially, it's printers only.

Can't connect external usb drive

I bought a WD mybook essential 500gb drive to use with my macbook pro. It worked for about a day, and then it would randomly connect and disconnect from the computer, and eventually wouldn't appear in disk utility at all. I searched the internet for a solution but all I could find were forums saying that WD is garbage and the best solution is to get a new enclosure and put the drive from the Mybook in it. So that's what I did, and I still can't get the drive to work. I can hear the drive spinning, the power light is on, the drive appears in System Profiler and sometimes appears in disk utility as "Generic External Media" but it doesn't work.

It is possible that the actual drive mechanism is damaged and not the electronics in the enclosure.
Sounds like junk to me. It is better to cut your losses and buy something known to work.

Time Capsule external USB drive won't reconnect remotely over Back To My Mac

I'm running a Mac Mini at work, connected via ethernet to an enterprise network (I have no idea what routers they are using, or how they are set up).
At home, I have a MBP laptop and a Time Capsule (hardwired to cable modem) with an external USB drive attached.
All 3 machines (Mac Mini, MBP, TC via Airport Utility) have Back To My Mac switched on.
I can access the external USB drive on my home TC from my work Mac Mini....until the Mini falls asleep. When I wake it back up, the connection back to the TC fails. However....after restarting the Mini, the connection works again.
My first thought was that the corporate network / firewall / etc was causing the problem - not leaving correct ports open, or someting to that effect. However, I realised that if that were the case, restarting the Mini shouldn't help, but it does.
Does anyone have any idea how sleeping breaks being able to access a TC's external drive remotely over BTMM?
The Mac Mini is a 2.3GHz Core i5 with 8GB RAM and plenty of HD space.
The MBP is a 15" late 2013 retina, 2.6 GHz Core i7, 16 GB RAM, also plenty of HD space.
The TC is a 2 TB 4th generation model.
Thanks!
J

Sorry that did not work. This works well for me using Lacie drives, but I haven't tried Iomega.
Have you checked Iomega's site to see if any software/firmware updates available?
Also noticed during a quick search that a number of users are reporting mounting problems with Iomega. Not sure if this applies to you or not.
http://discussions.apple.com/search.jspa?search=Go&q=iomegadrive+won%27tmount

How can I do backups on internal disc while sharing an external USB drive?

Hi,
On my Airport Utility there are two lines: "Time Capsule Disc", and below (indented) "Data".
(When I plug an external USB drive I can see it in this window as well)
Clicking (selecting) the first line, on the right hand side I can see the disc details (name, capacity and SMART Status (Verified)), and two buttons: Compress and Erase (I don't know if these are the words used on the english version mine is spanish).
Clicking on the second line (Data) I can see the Name "Data", capacity, used and available sizes and number of users connected.
First question:
Why Time Machine can't see the "Data" volume if I untick the "Share files" checkbox?
Second question:
Moreover, I've got a USB External Drive attached to my Time Capsule, so I have to have the "Share Files" checkbox ON, this makes my USB disc (fat32) available to my Windows computers but ALSO the "Data" volume can be seen from Windows. If there is any attempt to assign a Windows drive letter to the "Data" volume, next time Time machine wants to do a backup I'm getting a "disc wrong or missing, check credentials (or something similar)".
In summary, what I'm trying to do is Time Machine backups to the internal Time Capsule disc (making that disc unavailable/invisible to any other computer in my network) while sharing a USB external drive attached to Time Capsule.
Advice, please!

Yes you can go to > Music > iTunes folder and copy the whole iTunes folder and drag the folder to your external and then on the new Mac click and highlight the iTunes folder and then in iTunes click on the button at the top (add folder to library) and you should see all your songs transfer from the external to the Mac and all songs start filling up in your iTunes library on the Mac.
This is the easiest method all songs and other media such as songs, movies, apps will be transferred over however you may not be able to keep ratings & last played counts using this method.
To keep all metadata including ratings & play count use the Apple method exclusively for this if you have to have your metadata, play counts and ratings saved.
I used scenario one above because it one of the simplest methods and I was just satisfied enough just to transfer all media over.

How can i create a Trash for external USB Drives ?

Hello,
how can i create a Trash for external USB Drives or my TimeCapsule ?
Thanks.

You do not need to create trash cans for individual drives. The trash can on the desktop holds deleted files from all mounted drives.
TimeCapsule manages its own space. If it fills up it will delete older backps to make space for newer ones.

Can a time machine usb drive backup the data from an external usb drive connected to and airport extreme*

can a time machine usb drive conected to my mac book backup the data from an external usb drive connected to and airport extreme ?

Hi Adam, if you think yoiur HD may be failing you could do a TM restore onto the new disk. I would rather see you do a clone either SuperDuper or CarbonCopy Cloner.Of your internal drive. That way you have a bootable backup in case it does fail.
btw - what are the symptoms of your failing drive?
-mj
Message was edited by: macjack

When I try to format an external usb drive the progress bar only goes half way then freezes up can anybody help please

When I try to format an external usb drive the progress bar gets to half way then freezes , or stops and what ever time I allow it never gets any futher on , I have to go to the task bar and click quit to get on and the usb drive is not formatted is there a fault with my disk utility program I have updated the system
to lion 10.7.2
Can anybody advise please

Are these new external drives? How are the currently formatted? Have you tried doing this:
Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

Can i install SL on external usb drive & how to transfer over existing HDD

Hi
I have a MBP with around 200Gb used on a 500GB hdd ( installed after warantee ran out ). The MBP has been working fine for a year or so now but when i tried installing Snow Leopard i found the HDD was not setup as GUID which stopped the installation.
I thought i would install SL on an external USB drive which had been setup as GUID but after 4 attempts this failed as well for some unknown reason.
What i would like to know is,
1. if possible, how to transfer my data and settings etc to the external hdd from my current hdd inside the laptop.
2. How to set up boot camp ( i have a few ms programs that run erratically in mac fusion or parallels)
Can anyone help with this?
Thanks
Kev

Hi Harrison,
is this a firewire drive? Be aware that you cannot boot from a USB drive: Don't start up from an external USB device.
Also make sure your drive's firmware is up to date.

Suddenly can't share external USB drive

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