Using an external hard drive with Airport Extreme

I'd like to use an external hard drive to store movies and music through my Airport Extreme. The drive is connected to a powered usb hub which is connected to the Extreme. I can see the drive in Airport Utility but I can't figure out how to use it.

Hi,
I have just tried to set up an Airport Extreme with an external hard drive at home. I have 4 computers connected to the "network" - an iMac, a MacBookPro and 2 x windows machines. A printer is connected wirelessly to the two Macs.
I cannot find the hard drive - I have tried the steps mentioned by Bob Timmons Mar 17 2010, but the only things I see under "Shared" in Finder are the iMac and the printer - not the Airport Extreme (seems odd??), not the windows machines, and most importantly, not the hard drive connected to the USB port on the Airport Extreme.
I therefore expect that the iMac and printer are connected wirelessly and directly, rather than through my network (& I'm happy for the printer to be connected this way, but I do need the PCs and the hard drive all networked).
According to my network connection, (in top bar on the screen) I am definitely connected to the network - yet nothing else shows in finder??
I do, however, see the USB hard Drive when I go into Finder>Applications>Utilities>AirportUtility.app, under my Airport Extreme >Disks. I've also gone through all the set up procedures for "File Sharing."
I have read other posts about formatting the hard drive ether FAT32 or NFTS - is this something I now need to do?? If so, which one should I use, and once I do it, will I then see it?
Presumably, in order to format the Hard Drive, I will need to disconnect it from the Airport Extreme, and connect it directly to one of the Macs too?
My apologies for so many questions, but this is all very technical stuff for the non-techie layperson.
Many thanks for any help anyone can provide on one or more of the questions / issues.
Martin

Similar Messages

How do I use a seagate external hard drive with airport extreme?

I have a 1tb Seagate external hard drive and I connected it to the USB port at the back of my Airport Extreme. I opened Airport Utility and am now lost. How do I access the hard drive?
(I have a Macbook Pro running os x version 10.8.2)

The external hard drive must be formatted either in Apple's HFS+ or in Microsofts FAT32 in order for it to be recognized. You can format the drive by connecting it to your Mac and bringing up "Disk Utility".

I am not able to use my external hard drive with my Mac.

I am not able to use my external hard drive with my Mac. It was initially used with my Windows 7 laptop. Now when I insert my Hard drive in the Mac, it doesn't allow me to delete, format, make folders or copy new files on to my hard drive. I no longer have a Windows PC and am stuck. I tried going to Disc utilities,selected my HD, clicked on Erase and then changed the Format type to MS-DOS (FAT) but no luck .. Any other steps or advice?

It was likely formatted in NTFS which is readable by the Mac, but not writeable.
You should be able to reformat the disk in Disk Utility.
After having copied all the data off of it, you can try re-partitioning it.
Select the hard drive in the disk list in Disk Utility. Hard drives are the device itself, are left-aligned in the list, and are usually named with the manufacturer, size, and model number.
Click on the Partition tab.
Select 1-partition from the partition menu.
Click the Options button and set to GUID
Set the format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Give the Volume a name and click Apply.

Can I use an external hard drive with my ipad 2

can I use an external hard drive with my ipad 2

There are WiFi enabled portable hard drives available that can stream media, such as music or video, to your iPad, but no external hard drive in the sense of how you would use one with a computer.

Using an external hard drive with a Mac and a PC?

I have an external hard drive that I've used with my Windows PC/ itunes / music that I've copied to the PC. Can I use the external hard drive that I use with my Windows PC on my Mac/ itunes / music I've downloaded to my Mac?

wendybird wrote:
I also have a lot of pictures stored on the external hard drive that I can't lose.
(1) Any hard drive may fail at any moment. If you don't have a backup for this external hard drive, your pictures are half-gone already.
(2) If you're trying to make this drive a repository for your music and pics, then its best to format it as FAT32. That's the file system with the widest compatibility, and you'll be able to use the drive with Mac, Win, media players, even TVs with built-in media players. For practicality, it's probably best to keep it attached to a desktop machine and share it on your home LAN for all other devices.

Using an external hard drive with an airport extreme and HP computer

- I recently bought the airport extreme, and also bought a Seagate external hard drive for my music files. I can see the hard drive on the airport utility but cannot access it or find where to access it. I am using an HP computer with windows 7.
Help please!

The AirPort Extreme cannot share out the attached Seagate USB hard drive if it is formatted in NTFS or ExFat. Please check to see that it is formatted in either FAT32 or HFS+ (Apple format).
If it is already formatted in either of the latter two formats, then verify that the AirPort Utility can properly identify the hard drive by using the AirPort Utility for Windows.
Finally please checkout the following Apple Support article for details on accessing this shared drive from a Windows PC.

Unable to print or use external hard drives via Airport Extreme

Hi.
I installed Airport Extreme with no problems. Airport utility program shows everything is ok, and shows my printer (Canon LBP5100) and my two external hard drives which are connected to Airport via USB-hub.
My airport extreme is connected to ADSL-router and is providing another WLAN in my house. The internet connection works fine, but I couldn't print nor use my hard drives. I installed the printer using the bonjour guided printer installation tool.
I haven't heard that my printer would not be compatible with airport extreme so was my airport purchase totally unnecessary or what tricks should I use to make the printer and the external hard drives be available?
Sincerely,
Jarkko
Finland

Hi.
Thank you for your reply. No help though.
Printer gives me this warning:
The network cable is not connected, or the printer is not turned on. Check these items.
And still the hard drives are not visible anywhere.

External Hard Drive on Airport Extreme with a PC

I am trying to setup my Seagate FreeAgent external hard drive through my AirPort Extreme with my PC laptop. The AirPort Utility recognizes the disk, and I have enabled file sharing, but I cannot see the drive on either of my PC laptops that are connected to the network. How do I make the drive visable?

With an AirPort Extreme, the PCs will "see" the HFS+ formatted drive on the network as a FAT32 volume, so there is no need to reformat the drive as FAT32, but the normal limitations of FAT32, like maximum file size of 4 GB, slow transfers, etc. will still apply.

Bonjour - Connect Windows 7 to external hard drive on Airport Extreme

I have to use a laptop with windows 7 for work and I want to back up to a hard drive that is connected to my airport extreme station. I downloaded the bonjour print services and I had the printer set up in a minute. I can't figure out how to connect to the external hard drives that are connected to the airport extreme station though?! Obviously bonjour print services is only helping you with the printer. I couldn't install an earlier version of bonjour for windows because of the bonjour print service installation.
Any ideas how I can connect to those external hard drives? Thanks!

Thank you. I probably should have figured that out myself, but this did the trick. I am also connecting a new hard drive to my airport extreme. The mac and pc don't see the drive because of the NTFS format. This hard drive will be used for PC business related files only, but I still want to access it using my wireless network. Paragon is supposed to do the trick. I am just wondering if paragon makes the harddrive useable for both, the pc and the mac.

Adding external hard drive to airport extreme for time machine error

Hello,
I recently bought an airport extreme that I wanted to combine with an external hard drive in order to do wireless time machine backups. I hooked this up and the hard drive shows up in the devices menu.
However, when time machine starts to backup, I get the following error:
"The backup disk image “/Volumes/Blackmer External MyBook/Benjamin Crispell Blackmer’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle” could not be created (error 1)."
When my computer is connected directly to the hard drive, it works fine.
Any ideas on how to fix this?
Thank you.

It is important to understand that Apple does not support Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port of the AirPort Extreme. So, that may be an issue here.
Despite this, users try it anyway. Some appear to be successful for a time, some partially successful, some can't get it to work at all.
Even if it does appear to work initially, corruption issues may occur down the line without warning. Having tried this myself as a test a few times, I can attest to that.
If you want to try this anyway, the two important things to check are.....
The drive must be formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Other formats will not work
You almost always need to use a powered USB hub...even if the hard drive has its own power supply....because the USB port is under powered on the AirPort Extreme
You might also want to consider a secondary backup plan to protect your important files

How do I get my computers to see my external hard drive on airport extreme?

I jus purchased and airport extreme as although he directions say plug and play - it doesn't work. None of my computers see my external hard drive when it is plugged into the airport. Cannot locate directions with step by step support. thank you. Nettie

The external harddrive is NTFS format and someone from apple told me that it would have to be reformatted to be seen by the Extreme -- Needless to say with 33% of the hard drive filled, I do NOT want to reformat.
Unfortunately, HDDs attached to the USB port of the AirPort Extreme, cannot be recognized by the AirPort if formatted in NTFS. If you do not wish to reformat this drive, you will either have to use a different drive or connect this drive to a Windows PC for sharing on the network.
The AirPort can only share drives formatted in HFS+ or FAT32.

How to Acess iPhoto Library in External Hard Drive thru Airport Extreme and iPad

My iPhoto library is currently in an external hard drive that's connected to an Airport Extreme. I want to be able to access this library thru my iPad. Is there any way to accomplish this? I have spent endless hours online looking for an answer, but so far I have not found it.
Thank you so much for the help !!!

It may sound like a stretch, but there are so many people who have already solved more complex tasks than this one.
I can't believe the only solution to this problem is to use LogMeIn/GotoMyPC or other remote control applications to access the library thru my MacBook Pro. There is also an app for iPhones called NetPortalFile and I can view the individual pictures (but it ***** because I can only see one at a time and my wife has 60,000 pics...). Almost there with solutions, not integrated all yet that I know of and that's why I am asking.
I'll keep waiting, maybe someone has already figured it out or they are working on an app :)

Setting up an External hard drive on Airport Extreme

I have a 10.4.11 Macbook. I have Wirelessly configured computer to my Airport Extreme. I am now out of space and need to add an external hard drive to my Airport. Can someone please help me understand how to do this? Do have to create another wireless connection through Airport? It would seem that I would go through the same network but just add on the USB funtion. The how to manual is not dumbed down enough for me.

Here's the basic AppleScript to mount (place) the shared drive on your OS X desktop. You will need to substitute the appropriate values for your network where I have placed the angled brackets in the script.
You will need to run the AppleScript Editor, which you will find in the /Applications/Utilities folder, to create the following script, and then, save as an application which you can run later. I would run it to verify that it actually works. If it does, then you can add it as one of your Login Items of your User Account so that it will run at startup.
try
mount volume "afp://<Base Station Name>/<Share Volume Name>" as user name "<You can enter anything here>" with password "<Enter either the Base Station Password or Disk Password, based on the Secure Shared Disks type you are using>"
end try

External Hard Drive on Airport Extreme

My external hard drive is connected to my Extreme.
I noticed that when I copy files from my mac to the hard drive, the upload rate in the network activity monitor increases(in MB sizes).
Will my ISP consider this as an upload rate to the internet?
I am worried that they would mistake it as an illegal upload activity like P2P.

A few useful utilities that you might find helpful:
SkoobySoft SurplusMeter - This utility keeps track of your Internet usage and is helpful when you have an ISP that caps your bandwidth. Note: This utillty only measures the volume of data not the actual data content itself.
Net Monitor SideKick - This utility provides you with the actual data types that are being sent to/from your computer. It will also identify traffic that is going through the gateway, i.e., traffic that is going through the Internet router so you can compare against what your ISP is telling you.
LittleSnitch - Similar to Net Monitor SideKick, LittleSnitch concentrates on telling you what each of your applications are doing. More specifically, when and whom they are communicating with.

Why can't I find my external hard drive on Airport Extreme?

I have recently moved into a different home and set up the internet through Airport Extreme that works fine. However, I can not find the external hard drive plugged in to the Airport USB which used to show up in Macintosh HD under Devices.
I have unplugged and restarted the Airport, hard drive, and IMac numerous times. I have reset the Airport back to original settings and created a new network. Not sure what to do next.

The drive was hooked in the exact same way 2 days ago at my old address and worked perfectly.
"The drive must be formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) to work at the USB port of the AirPort Extreme, so that would be the first thing to check."
How do I do this?
"Next, the power at the USB port is borderline as far as its ability to supply adequate power to a hard drive....even if the hard drive has its own power supply.....so a number of users find that they need to use a powered USB hub."
I will look in to finding a powered USB hub but I don't understand why it would work 2 days ago and not today...
"You will need to open the Finder and click on the Go menu, then click Network to see the drive. Double click it to mount is on the desktop."
Correct, I used to find Airport there under Shared where I could click on Airport to access the hard drive. I don't see Airport at all.
"Finally, if you are planning to use the drive for Time Machine backups, that type of setup is not officially supported by Apple, so results will be unpredictable if you try this."
My hard drive is exclusively music files that I share between Imac and Macbook.

Using an external hard drive with Airport Extreme

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for