Why can't my MacBook find my external hard drive through wireless network

I have a 1 TB Western Digital My Book Essential external hard drive connected to my AirPort Extreme. I've been using it with my MacBook via my wireless network (mainly for music and movies) now for about 2 years without any trouble. Recently my MacBook has been unable to find the HD, it gives me the following message "The operation can't be completed because the original item for "My Book 1TB HD" can't be found". If I reboot my entire system (fios router, AirPort Extreme, MacBook, and external HD) I can access it for a short period of time but then the same problem arises. What can I do to resolve this issue and/or figure out where the actual problem is?
Thanks in advance!

The USB port on the AirPort Extreme has always been borderline as far as being able to provide sufficient power for a hard drive. It is not a high power port like you would find on a computer.
If you have not been using a powered USB hub with the AirPort Extreme....it is possible that the power supply on the Extreme has aged a bit, and it no longer puts out quite as much power as before.
Try a powered USB hub, but check the store's return policy before you buy in case this is not the solution.
Atter the powered USB hub, I have no suggestions other than the obvious..... check/replace the USB cable from the hard drive to the USB port on the AirPort.
Also check using an Ethernet connection from your Mac to the AirPort Extreme...to eliminate the possibility of a wireless interference issue being the culprit.

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Why won't my MacBook recognise my external hard drive?

I've just upgraded to a new MacBook.
I have a Maxtor Mini4 external hard drive which I used with my old iBook G4 (running OSX 10.4).
When I connect the hard drive to my MacBook it isn't recognised (it doesn't appear in Finder and the MacBook doesn't acknowledge the existence of the hard drive in any way).
I've downloaded the Maxtor software and installed it successfully on the MacBook.
Any ideas on why the MacBook doesn't recognise the hard drive? (the hard drive is powered by USB - it has no external power cord).
I still have my iBook and it continues to recognise the hard drive, so there is no problem with the drive.
Thanks
Nick

Mac Medic ([email protected]) wrote:
Are there two USB plugs connected to the wire coming out of the drive? Do you see the drive in your System Profiler? Even if it doesn't mount, it should show up in there.
I second that suggestion as the first thing your should look at. I had a SimpleTech drive that worked off of one port on a certain PC, but didn't mount with a single plug on any of my Macs. It always showed up in the USB Tree in System Profiler although I'm guessing it gave up trying to mount after sampling the power output.
The USB ports are likely to be and sometimes there are enough differences in the power output of two USB ports that a bus-powered hard drive can work in one but not the other. In general it's because a bus-powered device doesn't properly work with a standard spec 2.5W USB port.

Why can't my mac locate an external hard drive?

I'm unable to install yosemite as right at the end of the install (some 3 hours) it states I don't have enough memory. I didn't really think I had that much on it but hey ho. When I connect an external hard drive to me mac it can't find it.
I've tried to book a session at the genius bar but they don't offer appointments for mac users.

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It is listed in System Information.app > Hardware > USB?

Why can't I connect to my external hard drive anymore through my AirPort extreme?

I have a WD 500 GB external hard drive connected to my AirPort extreme that I have been using just fine for some time now. All of a sudden, I cannot access the files on the hard drive and when I try to connect to my AirPort in finder, the connection fails. What can I do to fix this?

If I restart my Mac it notices them
This is puzzling. You should not have to restart your Mac for drives to mount.
Also I plugged the hard drive directly into my Mac and had to restart it before it noticed it
Same as above. You should not have to restart the Mac for the drive to be recognized.
Connect the drive directly to the Mac and restart the Mac if necessary to mount the drive. Then run Verify Disk using Disk Utility on the Mac. If repairs are needed, run Repair Disk. Locate Disk Utility as follows:
Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
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Why can I no longer access my external hard drive?

I've been accessing my (powered) external hard drive for several months through my AirPort. It was never formatted for a Mac, since I had purchased it when i was still using a PC. And we still have PCs in the house that I want to be able to have access as well.
When I purchased the AirPort I was told that I could use it as an external drive, so I had moved some files onto it. Then... I was told, NO, don't put files on your AirPort because it could eventually lead to corrupt files in the Time Machine.
Yesterday, I was in the process of removing files from the AirPort and copying them to the external drive. I hit a point where my computer seemed to be thinking too hard and too long. The majority of the file transfers had been fine, but when I went to look at the external drive it appeared to be empty. After a bit of freaking out, we plugged the external drive directly into my Mac book to confirm that the files are still there. I've rebooted the computer, powered down the AirPort, and powered down the external drive to no avail.
While speaking with Apple customer service last night, we reset the AirPort as well. Nothing. I was finally told that my only option was to reformat the external drive. I'm hoping that someone here might have more insight before I jump through moving everything again.

#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            999.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

Can I play my music from external hard drive through itunes?

If this is possible How would a (NEW TO iMac) user do this? Otherwise if that is not possible, how do you export music files from a seagate external hard drive to itunes.

Expanding Niel's answer a bit...
in iTunes, go to iTunes->Preferences->Advanced and insure that "Copy files..." is NOT checked. Then you can add all your music to your iTunes library by dragging the parent folder into the "library" window at the upper left (if you're using iTunes 11, do View->Show sidebar first). You can also do "File->Add to library...".

Backup my external hard drives through the network.

I have a small network at the house. Three computers hooked up to the airport extreme router. Then I have a usb hub connected to the input of the router. To the hub I have 4 external Maxtor 1tb hard drives. Everything works beautifully.
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I tried time machine, special software, Maxtor sync manager nothing works.

I'm having similar issues to that. I have a Maxtor 500GB external drive that I would like to be able to attach to my Airport Extreme and access it that way. I am part of a three computer home network, but I'm the only one running Leopard, and I want the other two computers to be able to use the drive for simple drag and drop backup, rather than TM. However, after much searching, I haven't really got anywhere in figuring out how to set it up. How did you set up your drives going through the network?

Why can't I write to my external hard drive?

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Allan

How do i find my external hard drive through my airport extreme?

I have just installed my airport extreme. and also connected my external harddrive on it.
but i do not see it appearing anywhere?
what did i do wrong?

If you have an 802.11n AirPort Extreme, click here and follow the instructions; an NTFS partition cannot be used through it. If your AirPort Extreme isn't an 802.11n model, you can't.
(45872)

External hard drive on wireless network

Hi,
I have a Hard Drive that I want to connect to my iMac over my wireless network. The Hard Drive is correctly formatted, connected to the Router, and the router "sees" it and has it marked as "Unmounted".
So how do I now get my iMac to see the Hard Drive?
Unit is an Asus N56U wireless Router
Thanks in advance,
Richard

Yes, AiDisk is on, and I formatted the HDD directly from my iMac so formatting is fine. But although the router sees the HDD AiDisk always gives me this message
"You have not plugged any USB disk or have removed it. Please plug it and use the wizard again.°
I do have the HDD partitioned - could this be the problem?

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.
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How can I move my project from external hard drive to my macbook pro?

How can I move my project from external hard drive to my macbook pro? every time I try to do some editing, the sequence is very slow, thanks in advance

Try here...
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Can i use my time capsule to wirelessly backup my macbook and its external hard drive, which up until now was it's time machine and storage? How?

Can i use my time capsule to wirelessly backup my macbook and its external hard drive, which up until now was it's time machine and storage? How?

The external drive must be connected to the Mac using either USB or FireWire
You must remove the external hard drive from the list of items that are "excluded" from backups in Time Machine Preferences.
Here's how:
Open System Preferences (gear icon on the dock)
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Look for the name of the hard drive in the list of "excluded" items and click on it to highlight it
Click the -- (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the hard drive from the list of "excluded" items....so it will now be backed up
Strongly recommend that you do the first backup using Ethenret from your computer to the Time Capsule since the entire contents of the external drive will be copied on the first pass. Ethernet will be 3-5 faster than wireless.
Once you have the first backup done, you can use wireless for subsequent backups since they will nornally be much smaller....unless you add large files to the external drive.

I can't find my external hard drive in FCPX

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Any Ideas?

Please check this out:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5958
http://fcpx.tv
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File/Update Projects & Events/Locate

I can not find my external hard drive...

The time machine is not working. How do I find my external hard drive and find my backup files? Perhaps this has to do with the fact that I lost power the other day and my router is not working... A different question.. Is this related?

The external hard drive does not work any longer
Do you mean the Time Capsule? If you are having problems with your Linksys router as you indicate, the Time Capsule will likely not function correctly until the Linksys is working normally.
I am getting into the default setting of linsys.
I think you may mean Linksys. If this device is your main router, everything on the network receives connection information from the Linksys, so this device must be functioning correctly in order for any other devices on the network to work correctly.
I can not get the website to open the 192????????
I'm guessing that you are talking about the Linksys router here, correct? You may need to contact Linksys support as our ability to help on that product is going to be limited to a user who understands Linksys products and happens to see this post.
I think we can help on the Time Capsule. Please post back when you have the Linksys router working correctly and we will work on getting the Time Capsule up and running again on the network.
Besides, I tried to log into this website for forever, it wouldn't let me.
I check the Community Support area mutliple times each day and cannot recall any problems with accessing this area in the recent past. We have not seen any other similar compaints from other users, as would normally be the case if there were a general problem with this site.

Why can't my MacBook find my external hard drive through wireless network

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