# The tale of the Airport Extreme and the missing external drive ...



## lostnomore (Sep 21, 2010)

I have an Airport Extreme base station with the latest firmware. I have a 3-port USB cable running off the main USB port so I can plug in my printer, a 750GB external drive, and an 80GB external drive to back up my older Mac desktop running the latest version of Tiger. I set up the network because of my Mac laptop running the latest version of Snow Leopard.

The printer and the 750GB drive work fine on this network, appearing and usable on both Macs without any hassle. The 80GB drive also appears and works no problem with my laptop, but no matter what I try, I can't get the 80GB to appear when using the desktop Mac. In fact, the only way to get the 80GB to work for the desktop is to connect it directly to the desktop Mac with USB, but then obviously it's no longer on the AE network. I'd rather have the 80GB drive connected to the network so both Macs can access it instead of only one at a time.

So I'm perplexed. Any ideas/suggestions on how to get the 80GB to appear on my desktop Mac as well when connected to the Airport Extreme?


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

Is your USB hub self powered?


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## lostnomore (Sep 21, 2010)

Yes. Actually, it's more like a 3-way cable, a USB cable with three inputs (female ends). I don't know how else to describe it.


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

Just to clarify, your USB hub plugs into an electrical outlet?

If you connect just the 80GB to your hub does it then appear on desktop mac?


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## lostnomore (Sep 21, 2010)

This is the hub in question, and I made a mistake - it's powered by the USB port on the AE. The hub is plugged into the AE, not the desktop Mac. When the 80GB drive is plugged into the hub, and thus into the AE, this drive shows up no problem on my laptop, but it doesn't appear at all on my desktop Mac even though the 750GB drive plugged into the very same hub will show up on both Macs. The only way for my desktop Mac to "see" the 80GB drive is to plug it directly into my desktop Mac, no hub involved.

Thus the original problem as before, but stated differently: how do I get my 80GB accessible to both Macs while plugged into the AE hub?

As for your suggestion about just plugging the 80GB to the AE hub, I'll try that and get back to you.


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## lostnomore (Sep 21, 2010)

Okay, so I plugged the 80GB by itself into the AE hub then went to my desktop Mac (a Mini running Tiger), went to the Finder and clicked on Network where I saw AE appear (the name I've given to my Airport Extreme network). Then I clicked "Connect" and a window appeared with the following message:

*Connection failed
*
The server may not exist or it is not operational at this time. Check the server name or IP address and try again.

Again, my Mini is not wirelessly connected to the AE; it's linked to it by Ethernet. However, this doesn't stop the 750GB drive when plugged into the AE hub from appearing on my Mini. I'm about ready to throw something out the window ...


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

Skip the hub. If you plug the 80GB directly to the AE does it appear on both both computers?

Second, create a temporary new user account on the desktop mac. Login into that account and see if they drive appears now.


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