# Airport Problems



## ashawyer (Jan 5, 2008)

I recently purchased an apple airport extreme - the reason i did was because i have read good reviews and the articles talked about how easy it is to set up - plug in and play!!

Well, this is my situation...

I have a Macbook Pro, Intel Core Duo laptop with leopard installed.

I also have a fairly new windows desktop pc.

All i want is, to be able to connect my external hard drive to the airport and have the ability to use that as the main disk for the work side of things for my laptop and also for the PC. 

I would also like to have the ability to transfer files from the PC to the Mac and visa versa

I have connected the airport to the broadband router, the pc to the airport using a lan cable and plugged in my external HD to the airport using USB. 

the internet works fine, but i cant get the external HD working well, sometimes its there and sometimes its not.


i have run the airport utility on the mac and also on the PC and i cant seem to find out the problem.

Additionally i would like to be able to access the external HD for work.

I have a HP Officejet G85 printer connected to my PC - could i share it so i can print from my mac laptop.

I REALLY NEED HELP AS THIS IS DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!!!!!!

Thank you so much


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## Yankee Rose (Jul 14, 1999)

Hello there -

First, I'd make sure your software is updated. Click the Apple Logo then Software Update.

Next, have you formatted the external drive? See this article from Apple's support site.

Are you able to consistently access the hdd from either the Mac or Windows end of things? Or are both intermittent?


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## ashawyer (Jan 5, 2008)

Hi, thank you for your quick reply, 

i have checked the software update, and everything is upto date.

In disk utility i erased the disk, could you suggest a way of completely formatting the external hard drive?? i used the hard drive previously for Time Machine and when erasing the disk, i had some problems because some of the files were protected, so i held down 'option' key when clicking on erase, that seemed to work

I think i have complicated things by having passwords etc for the hdd, maybe i should start from scratch??? what do you thing.

with responce to your last question i have the hdd on my mac desktop constantly but i dont have it in 'my computer' on the pc

hope this answers your questions


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## Yankee Rose (Jul 14, 1999)

Hi ashawyer:

When you initially set up the external hard drive and Airport, did you first format the drive?

I suggest that - yes - you start from scratch. My prior post has a link on how to format the external hard drive to get it ready for Airport.

Hope that helps!


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## ashawyer (Jan 5, 2008)

Ok i have reset and re installed - i have also formatted the hdd using MacOSX Extended-

I have now set up a new network using my PC and the mac connects great.

I have plugged in my hdd to the airport extreme and have gone through the settings in the airport utility to set up the hdd and so it can be shared (this was all set up on PC)

the hdd appears on my mac and works fine, but my PC cant seems to find it.

I wonder why????? I cant find it in My Computer or anything - 

I dont know what to do?? Can you please help me??


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## Yankee Rose (Jul 14, 1999)

Hello again:

Have you tried temporarily disabling any third party firewall software you may have running on your Windows system, and have you double-checked that the Workgroup name setup with the Airport Utility for the hdd matches that of which your PC is setup under?


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## trashtalk26 (Jul 16, 2007)

Yankee Rose said:


> Hello again:
> 
> Have you tried temporarily disabling any third party firewall software you may have running on your Windows system, and have you double-checked that the Workgroup name setup with the Airport Utility for the hdd matches that of which your PC is setup under?


I was recently told by a Mac Guru that in order to share an external USB HD with both Mac and PC nodes, the HD had to be formatted as FAT32. Can you confirm or refute this?


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## trashtalk26 (Jul 16, 2007)

WRT Setting up Airport Extreme, I thought I had done that correctly, but sometime later, things went haywire. Because I need to keep the router supplied by my ISP (Verizon Fios), my APEx needs to be set up in BRIDGE mode (letting the ISP-supplied ActionTec router assign IP addresses). Now when I attempt to reprogram the router, it always reverts to DHCP when I set it up as Bridge. I must not be setting up some higher ranking parameter correctly. Is anyone familiar with this issue?


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## Yankee Rose (Jul 14, 1999)

trashtalk26 said:


> I was recently told by a Mac Guru that in order to share an external USB HD with both Mac and PC nodes, the HD had to be formatted as FAT32. Can you confirm or refute this?


Hello:

In checking the Apple Discussions, I see in this thread that formatting the drive in FAT32 solves the problem for some folks. So I'd GO FOR IT and see what happens!  Good luck!


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## Yankee Rose (Jul 14, 1999)

trashtalk26 said:


> WRT Setting up Airport Extreme, I thought I had done that correctly, but sometime later, things went haywire. Because I need to keep the router supplied by my ISP (Verizon Fios), my APEx needs to be set up in BRIDGE mode (letting the ISP-supplied ActionTec router assign IP addresses). Now when I attempt to reprogram the router, it always reverts to DHCP when I set it up as Bridge. I must not be setting up some higher ranking parameter correctly. Is anyone familiar with this issue?


I am sorry that I am not - I've briefly checked the Apple Discussions and see there are a few posts there regarding this similar issue -- I will post back if I can find anything to help you.


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## dannyn (Nov 9, 2007)

sorry to post this late... 


> When you initially set up the external hard drive and Airport, did you first format the drive?
> 
> I suggest that - yes - you start from scratch. My prior post has a link on how to format the external hard drive to get it ready for Airport.


that isnt necessary... i bought an external hdd plugged er' in and i was great.
like what was said previously.. turn off you firewall before you go to the mac hdd utility and try to connect to the hdd.


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## trashtalk26 (Jul 16, 2007)

Dannyn, R U saying that you installed an unformatted HD? More likely, you installed a pre-formatted HD (many come ready to use on a PC, either NTFS or FAT32). When I set up my USB HD as a network drive connected to an A/Extreme, I reformatted it for OS-X. All went well for a few weeks, and then suddenly, I discovered that my files were all corrupted. I later learned at a Mac user grp. mtg. that there were "issues" with A/EX routers that had recently had a firmware update. Guess what the issue was... you guessed it: corruption of USB HD data files.


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## dannyn (Nov 9, 2007)

yes... You are right. I thought that you said earlier that you bought
a her like a western digital at best buy. My mistake
but you dont need to format it for mac os x pc is fine


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## trashtalk26 (Jul 16, 2007)

dannyn: Sorry, but not sure I understand your last post... a little too brief, or not intended as a reply to my msg. (re. file corruption of a USB network drive connected to an A/Ex base station). I'm a little confused about when or whether it is important to format a drive to be compatible with a particular O/S. My primary LAN usage is for a Mac environment; however, it would be convenient to be able to allow a couple of PCs to access the network drive from time to time. In that situation, would I be better off formatting the network drive as FAT32? Will that affect how Macs read/write data on that drive? I believe no PC can access the drive as long as it is formatted for OS-X. BTW: my USB drive is a Cavalry 500GB (not West. Dig.).


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## dannyn (Nov 9, 2007)

it shouldn't need reformatting..
you should have been able to plug it in and it works
thats the way the aiport base stations are made to work.
myne is formatted as fat... form the factory..
and mac and pc can access it.


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