Time Machine doesn't see backup disk

My wife has a late '06 macbook running 10.6.5. We are trying to setup time machine for wireless backups through our airport extreme and our iomega 500gb hard drive. When opening time machine from system preferences and clicking on "select backup disk..." there are no disks that appear in the selection window. I have a macbook pro that is currently using the same iomega in time machine so yes, the external is formatted for mac and it is working great with my pro. I have shut off and powered back up the external, restarted my wife's macbook, and searched forum after forum and cannot seem to get this to work. The external does not show up in disk utility on her's but does on mine. She just recently had a new hard drive installed at our mac retailer because her original one just up and crashed...no warning or anything so we really want to start doing backups to avoid loosing anymore data. Anymore help would be much appreciated.

Your suggestion to Connect to Server led me down what seems to have been the right path.
I first tried restarting the whole network in order, and that made no difference: Time Machine still did not see the external drive partition.
I used Connect to Server to get to the external drive. That made no difference: Time Machine still did not see the external drive partition.
I mounted the external drive partition that holds the sparsebundle. That made the difference: the partition was then visible to Time Machine, so I selected it. A dialog box popped up asking for the TC’s password so Time Machine could access the TC. I entered it, and the partition was successfully selected as the backup disk.
I then tried to backup, but that failed, saying that the backup on PartitionName-1 was in use. I tried it again and looked at /Volumes while it was trying, and saw both PartitionName (presumably mounted by Finder) and both PartitionName-1 (presumably in a futile attempt to be mounted by Time Machine). I cancelled that backup and told Finder to dismount the partition, which caused Finder to dismount the whole Time Capsule. I reconnected to the Time Capsule but did not mount the partition, and tried to backup. That, finally, worked.
So here’s what I needed to do:
In Finder, use Connect to Server to connect to the Time Capsule.
In Finder, open the partition on the Time Capsule’s external drive.
In Time Machine Preferences, select the partition as the backup disk.
Enter the Time Capsule password when it’s prompted for.
In Finder, dismount the partition.
(Possibly unnecessary: In Finder, use Connect to Server to connect to the Time Capsule.)
In Time Machine, Back Up Now.

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    Time Machine doesn't see the back-up disk after I've logged off and then back on, even though the disk is available to the iMac 24/7. Turning the disk off and then on in the current session works, but this seems to defeat the purpose of an unattended back-up disk. I can't find a setting that ensures the back-up disk is recognized after log-in or restart. Is there a solution?

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    angel:log root#
    Finally Time Machine exists with error "Backup disk cannot be accessed. error 109".
    Can someone give me a hint or two on how to solve this issue?
    regards

    Not a NAS-specific issue.  The OS is trying to read a block of the sparse disk image, and the read is failing.  Basically, the sparse bundle is damaged.  You'll need to rename it and then try backing up again to a clean sparse bundle.
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    Edit: actually, on further searching, it might be a NAS-specific issue.  Certain buggy network switches do not properly support jumbo frames in mixed networks, which can cause read errors similar to what you are seeing when working with AFP.  (This might have been your post on the other board.)  In the Network prefs pane, choose Ethernet, click "Advanced", click the Ethernet tab, change Configure to Manually, and set the MTU to Standard (1500).

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  • Time machine doesn't see external hard drive on network

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    The iMac has been having some OS X issues. The Finder will crash sometimes, and I have no choice but to hold down the power button to shut it down and then start it up. When it starts, it takes longer than it normally does, I assume because it's checking and/or fixing some things.  However, those issues have been going on for a long time (I think I need to reinstall OS X in it, since Disk Utility finds nothing wrong; also, the hard drive in the iMac crashed about 2 months ago and I put a new one in; I then restored the TM backup to it, and the OS X issues have persisted, which tells me it's software-related, not the drive).
    Also, the iMac backs up to the Time Machine drive just fine. Of course, the TM drive is connected to it locally, whereas the laptops have to get to that drive via wireless file sharing.
    I did try plugging one of the external hard drives on the iMac into my MacBook, and Time Machine saw it immediately, so my guess is the issue must lie with my router and/or the iMac, but I don't know what to check next.  I've restarted the iMac, I've restarted the laptops, I've turned TM on and off on the laptops, and I've turned file sharing on and off on the iMac; none of those things reestablished the connection.
    I suppose I could just go with external hard drives for the laptops, but my wife moves her iBook all over the house, so I know hers won't get backed up regularly. That was the nice thing about the system I had in place, which I realize wasn't as elegant as a Time Capsule.
    Any advice is appreciated.  Thanks.

    That should say "Now none of the laptops (a MacBook and an iBook) will see either external drive..."  I hate typos.
    Anyway, after rereading my post, I'm starting to think I just need to reinstall OS X on the iMac, given the other issues it's experiencing.  Any advice for doing that would be appreciated, if that's indeed the solution. Thanks.

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