The USB port on my 4th generation Airport Extreme does not recognize any peripheral devices whatsoever. In other words, it does not function at all. What can I do?

Question

I have had my Airport Extreme for almost a year now.  I have not been able to get it to work.  It has never worked.  I have tried everything in the apple manuals, my peripheral device manuals, and online help.  My Airport Extreme Base Station has a completely dead USB port.  The USB connector does have voltage and ground.  Apparently there is no data transfer.  I do not know how to test the data pinouts.  I don't know if it is a software or driver problem, or if it is a hardware or wiring problem.  My computer is a mid-2009 13" MacBook Pro.  All of my external devices work well with the MacBook Pro.  The USB functionality on the MacBook Pro has always performed without a glitch.  It seems the problem with the Airport Extreme must either be a network communication problem or a hardware/hardwire problem.  I bought the Airport Extreme to build a home inTRAnet network.  I have a seperate 3rd party router for inTERnet.  Contrary to what the manuals declare, the initial setup of my Airport Extreme requires inTERnet setup during the process.  Even when the choice is made to limit the network access to LAN only, when I reach the end of the setup process, a prompts reads that the Airport Extreme may not function because I have not set it up for inTERnet with the WAN.  Well, Dah...  during the intial stages of the setup I told the machine to configure an inTRAnet only LAN setup.  So...  I went ahead and set it up for inTERnet and WAN.  Either way, the USB port is not working.  Then I set it up for the whole package, WAN, LAN, and everything.  Still... no function out of the USB port.  Any ideas?
P.S.  The Ethernet works and so does the 802.11 tranceiver.  The USB port is the only problem, but a major, major one for my needs.  There is no peripheral functionality.

Answer 1

Okay so I figured it out.  I inherited the Configurator already set up so I didn't realize that our former administrator was brilliant and set things up a little differently.  To anyone else who finds themselves in this spot try this:
After you plug the iPad in and open Configurator instead of trying to 'Prepare' the device click 'Assign'
There should be groups of Users listed on the left hand side of the screen.
Select the group you want the ipad to be a part of, or make a new group. ***Note a group can be one person so this is a good feature for teachers to have individual app assignements for students.
After you select the user group click the little plus ( + ) button on the bottom of the screen under the second column of info where names and device serial numbers should appear.
Type the name of the person, group, whatever you want to identify that assignment by into the blank that pops up after you hit the plus ( + )
Then select the assignment you just made and tohe 'Check Our' button at the bottom.  At this point a box will pop up with a window at the top listing all devices supervised by Configurator.  There is a tiny down arrow button that opens a scroll down menu to the right of this box.  Click that, then select the device connected by USB as the one to assign. 
The name of the assignment you gave it will show on the lock screen now and you can assign apps and profiles to the device like you would any other device in your Configurator inventory. 
Good Luck.