Time Machine clueless about external HD connected to Airport Extreme

This is not my first post about HD connected to Airport Extreme. Just came back from Apple store. Spoke to Geniuses there in tech support desk and they are clueless.
Here is situation: have 7 Macs in the house connected to Airport Extreme wirelessly. In that respect things are working fine. Last week I purchased brand new WD My Book external HD and connected it to Airport Extreme using USB (it also has Fire Wire but that is not a point here).
As per forum advices I re-formated drive using disk utility to Mac Extended journaled, GUID. here is result:
iMAC x 3, with Tiger - see, mount and use My Book easily, shows on desktop as mounted drive
MacBook Pro w. Tiger - same as above, back up every day to My Book
MacBook with Leopard x 2 - no My Book on desktop, Time Machine doesn't see it
Mac Mini with Leopard - same as above, no trace of My Book, Time Machine doesn't see it
* This problem evolved from me having regular 160 GB FAT32 HD connected to Airport Extreme. Again Tiger machines were using that drive every day no sweat.
* Then I decided to upgrade all Macs to Leopard for one single reason only - Time Machine. (Good that I didn't do it but rather decided to introduce new, bigger and better USB drive first).
* Western Digital My Book is being sold in Apple stores as "drive that is recognized by Time Machine" so I bought 1TB unit.
* All Macs and Airport Extreme are up to date.
Any suggestions? Thank you in advance,
Zack

I cannot tell you why your Apple Genius told you what he did, but he/she was dead wrong. Apple sells its Time Capsule product, so they are not interested in making the AEBS a product competitor.
I will give you a little secret for which you will forever be indebted to me.
Open your Terminal application in the Utilities folder and at the prompt enter or paste the following command pressing RETURN after:
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1
Miraculously your problem will be Solved.

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Corrupted time machine backup on external hd connected to Airport extreme?

I have an Airport extreme 11n (not gigabit) and a Lacie external hard disk connected to the usb port. Time machine is set up to make backups wirelessly from my laptop to this external disk. It used to work fine, but no I have the following problem all the time: Time machine complains that it cannot perform the backup. When this happens, I cannot access the drive from the finder (normally I can). I check the drive physically and I notice that it's LED show that it is constantly reading/writing (is yellow instead of red). The solution is (as also suggested by Apple support) to use disk utility and perform a repair on the drive. This solves the problem, but... only temporarily. After one or two successful backups, the same problem: no backup possible, drive not accessible in finder, disk utility finds problems. What can i do?

Somehow I thought that with OS X 10.6 Time Machine did support disks connected to Airport devices, but I guess I'm wrong.
The LaCie disk has indeed its own external power supply brick. Is this relevant?
I found this article http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1550
which is not about airport disks, but I checked my LaCie disk and it has a Master Boot Record Partition Scheme. Should I change that?
It is also formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I thought that this was the recommended format, but checking in the Help of OS X 10.6, I found an article "Disks that can be used with Time Machine" which says: "The most common format for a Time Machine backup disk is Mac OS Extended format, but Time Machine also supports Mac OS Extended (Case sensitive, Journaled) and XSan formats"
implying that the Extended format is more preferable than the Journaled format, right?
I don't think the disk drive is defective: I after "repairing" it with disk utility, I could back up again, at least one time, before the problem reappears.

Using Time Machine with 3rd party drive connected to Airport Extreme

In Snow Leopard, I connected a G-Tech drive to my Airport Extreme via USB and used that with Time Machine for backups. It worked flawlessly most of the time, although my understanding is that this technique has not been supported by Apple since Snow Leopard was released. Is anybody using this method in Lion? If so, does it work OK?
I got a little worried reading about the issues some folks have had doing Time Machine backups in Lion so instead of trying that method, I got another drive and connected it via FireWire to my MacBook Pro for backing up in Time Machine. The first backup took a little over an hour. The second one took just a few moments. I do notice that my hard drive stays mounted on my desk top even when Time Machine is inactive. Is this normal?

Lots of people do this, but it is not supported and there have been reports of data corruption even if things appeared to be working for quite some time. The question you have to ask yourself is whether it is worth the risk. This is a backup, after all. An unreliable backup is worse than no backup (because you think you have one when you may not).
What you have experienced with your external drive is all normal. The first backup takes quite a while because it is both large and there are lots of small files to copy. (Copying lots of small files is slower than copying a few large ones.) Subsequent backups will usually be much faster. One hour for the initial backup is actually very fast. Finally, external drives remain mounted even when Time Machine is not using them, unlike network drives which are only kept mounted while the backup is active.

Time machine on a hard disc connected to airport extreme

I currently have a 500 gig hard disc connected to my iMac directly to be used to back up to time machine and it has been telling me there is no space for a long time. I am thinking about buying a bigger drive, but I would like to know whether I can connect the HD to my airport extreme and run Time Machine wirelessly?
The reason I want to do it is that I am, also thinking about buying a MacBook Air and I'd like to back that up to the same HD on the same network.
Can you help?

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.

Time machine problems w/ external hard drive and airport extreme

Time machine is keeping backup for only 6 days + the hourly backup. When I open time machine preferences, though, it appear that time machine is off. When turning it on it does not show my external hard drive (however, the backup has been running as mentioned above, for 6-day history). When I select other time capsule it shows the airport extreme but nothing can be done from then on.

Time machine is keeping backup for only 6 days + the hourly backup. When I open time machine preferences, though, it appear that time machine is off. When turning it on it does not show my external hard drive (however, the backup has been running as mentioned above, for 6-day history). When I select other time capsule it shows the airport extreme but nothing can be done from then on.

Can Time Machine backup a USB drive connected to Airport Extreme?

Hi all,
I have an airport extreme that I used to run a shared USB drive for the family. I have a network drive attached to the airport extreme which I used for Time Machine backups, how do I tell Time Machine to back up the USB drive also?
All help very gratefully recieved.

Thanks for your reply,
When I open Time Machine preferences I can either select a different disk to use as the backup disk or exclude items from the back up. I cannot find an option to add the USB drive attached to my airport extreme. Apologies if I am being a little dumb.

I am trying to get an answer to whether or not I can successfully use Time Machine with an external HDD connected to an airport extreme? Some forums say yes, some say no.

I am trying to get an answer to whether or not I can successfuly use Time Machine with an external HDD connected to an airport extreme. Some forums say yes, some say no. I'm also curious about formatting the hard drive to work both on my wife's MacBook Pro and my PC. Any help would definitely be appreciated.

You may be going on a recollection, that I share, that at one time Apple stated this would be possible:
In fact, Apple’s Time Machine Web page touted this very capability as recently as last Tuesday, as you can see from Google’s October 16 cache of the page
Effortless meets wireless. With a hard disk connected to your AirPort Extreme Base Station, all the Macs in your house can use Time Machine to back up wirelessly. Simply select your AirPort Disk as the backup disk for each computer and the whole family can enjoy the benefits of Time Machine.
But if you look at the current Time Machine page on Apple’s Web site, that text is nowhere to be found.
That was a long time ago, it has never been officially implemented, and at present they specifically say it cannot be done.
In summary, it may work, but probably won't, and even if it does it may not be reliable.
Reference:
Disks that can be used with Time Machine
Time Machine can’t back up to an external disk connected to an AirPort Extreme, or...
and
Mac OS X v10.5: Time Machine doesn't back up to AirPort Extreme AirPort Disks

I have my Time Machine on an external drive (not connected to Airport Extreme) and I have an external HD attached to airport extreme. Is it possible to have Time Machine backUp computer HD AND external HD connected to Airport Extreme. How?

I have my Time Machine on an external drive (not connected to Airport Extreme) and I have an external HD attached to airport extreme. Is it possible to have Time Machine backUp computer HD AND external HD connected to Airport Extreme. How?

Is it possible to have Time Machine backUp computer HD AND external HD connected to Airport Extreme.
Sorry, but no.
Time Machine will backup your Mac, but not the hard drive attached to the AirPort Extreme.
Time Machine will back up a hard drive only if it is attached directly to your Mac via USB or FireWire.

Time Machine could not complete the backup to "AirPort Extreme."

Hi I have Time capsule and a external harddrive connected to for my time machine
Sudenly I cant back up to my time machine and recive this message.
Please help what culd it be
The image "/ Volumes / Marcus Time Machine-1/Marcus MacBook Pro.sparsebundle" backup already in use.
Please help what culd it be
/marcus

First, restart your MacBook and the Time Capsule or AirPort Extreme. If it doesn't work, see > http://pondini.org/TM/C12.html
Apple released an AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule firmware upgrade to fix the issue. Open AirPort Utility (in /Applications/Utilities) and follow the steps

Stopped see files on external HD connected to airport extreme.

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OK...Here is where things stand:
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When connecting over wifi the Permissions say, "You have Custom access"
If I seach for an iTunes file that I know is on the remote HDD it plays
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Should "Back to Mac" be enabled? I am not sure what other knobs to turn at this point.

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I own an Airport Extreme and just recently added two new Macs with the Time Machine feature to our household. I would like to use Time Machine to backup to my Airport Extreme that has a 500 GB hard drive connected. It seems Apple has this blocked since they have released the Time Capsule version of the router. Is there a work around this feature so I don't have to go out an purchase what I basically have already got? Please help. We would like to upgrade our older macs to Leopard and us the same system to back them up as well. Please advise. Thank you.

I had my USB drive on my APE working with Time Machine under 10.5.1 very reliably. A few days ago however, I needed to suspend a backup operation, and when I came back to restart it, time machine refused to mount the disk image on the drive. After several attempts to get it to connect with no luck I decided to delete the image (the sparce image file) and start over. Now TM refuses to create a new image.
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Problem mapping USB external drive connected to Airport Extreme on my PC

I am having a problem mapping my USB external drive in my PC running WIndows Vista. Here is what I have so far:
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I was also told I need to map the drive in my PC, but when I go to do that via the Computer and the Map Network Drive, I get stuck where it asks me to enter a folder name. I read many of the posts which tell me I need to enter among other things the disk's ip address, but I am unable to find it anywhere. Where do I find what to put here?
Can someone please help this frustrated user?

I had my USB drive on my APE working with Time Machine under 10.5.1 very reliably. A few days ago however, I needed to suspend a backup operation, and when I came back to restart it, time machine refused to mount the disk image on the drive. After several attempts to get it to connect with no luck I decided to delete the image (the sparce image file) and start over. Now TM refuses to create a new image.
BTW, on the Mac OSX hints site there have been suggestions to start a backup with the drive directly connected, then stop the backup, move the sparce image file to the root of the drive, reconnect the drive to the APE base station to get it working. I tried this again, but I think Apple has changed something in 10.5.2, because when directly connected TM no longer creates a sparce image file.
Anybody else seen this behavior after upgrading to 10.5.2?

Time machine error 21 only cured by rebooting Airport Extreme

I have a macbook pro 13" (2009 vintage), and an airport extreme. Despite the fact that Apple says that it doesn't officially support Time machine backups to AE connected disks, I've been doing this since early 2010 (when I bought the AE). Starting about 6 months later after one of the updates to the firmware, every few days Time Machine would fail saying that another application already had the backup files. Nothing I did on the macbook cured this, but I discovered that doing a power cycle of the AE would cure it for a few days. This was annoying, but I was able to live with that. However, with the update to 7.5 firmware this started happening every few hours. I talked to Apple Care support and they suggested that I have the hardware of the AE checked out at an apple store. I did that, and they said that the old one was defective, and gave me a brand new AE (last week). RIght after that, it wanted to install 7.6. Well since then, I can do one backup on the disk. After that, when I try to do another backup I get the dreaded "error 21". However, if I power cycle the AE, things then work again. This tells me that there's a software bug on AE, which, I suspect was introduced in version 7, and has only gotten worse. Even if I don't try to do TM backups, after a few days I can't connect to the disks at all until I power cycle the AE. Anyone else have a problem like this? I wish that I could get Apple to consider that this is really a problem. If I could disassemble the firmware, I could look for the problem myself.

I cannot tell you why your Apple Genius told you what he did, but he/she was dead wrong. Apple sells its Time Capsule product, so they are not interested in making the AEBS a product competitor.
I will give you a little secret for which you will forever be indebted to me.
Open your Terminal application in the Utilities folder and at the prompt enter or paste the following command pressing RETURN after:
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1
Miraculously your problem will be Solved.

IMac doesn't recognize external HD connected to Airport Extreme

Just bought a new Airport Extreme and an Iomega Prestige HD for file sharing and backup through Time Machine. When I open Disk Utilities, the external HD is not listed. I did connect the HD directly to the Mac and it showed up. I reformatted the disk and then reconnected it to the Airport Extreme...still nothing. Any help would be appreciated.
Brian

When I open Disk Utilities, the external HD is not listed.
You won't see it in Disk Utility unless the drive is connected directly to your Mac
I reformatted the disk and then reconnected it to the Airport Extreme...still nothing.
The USB port on the Extreme is under powered. You almost always have to use a powered USB hub, even if your drive has its own power supply
backup through Time Machine
Careful...Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port are not supported by Apple. A few users report that they apparently have been able to make this work, but most us encounter corruption issues either immediately, days, weeks, or sometimes a month or two down down the road.
Bottom line....it's "iffy" and there's no support if you have problems, which are very likely.
From Apple: Time Machine can’t back up to an external disk connected to an AirPort Extreme....
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html

USB External HD Connected to Airport Extreme - access from outside network?

Hi,
Is there any type of software that I can get that would allow me to access my shared external hard drive w/ my airport extreme from outside the network, like some type of ftp server or anything that would allow me to access it from outside my home?

A simple way would be to share it via Apple File Sharing and FTP...
You'll need a static Ip and a hostname, although it is easy to set up if you have a dynamic Ip too...
Creat a free hostname on "www.dyndns.com" (for example), open your AFP and FTP ports on your router, and then use sotware such as "Rumpus" for the FTP service and tell it what drive you want to share (it can be a network drive). For AFP, all you have to do is connect to the server from the finder, hitting "Go...Connect to Server.."
I've got my extreme drive shared globally and it works fine...just need some time and patience to set up the ports and hostnames...
If you need help on the setup just email me... [email protected] and i'll be happy to answer any questions...

Time Machine clueless about external HD connected to Airport Extreme

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