Since there seems to be a lot of people having this same issue and not a lot being said about solving the issue, I thought I’d write a quick post to document the process of fixing this problem.
I’ve owned an Airport Extreme for awhile and, just this weekend, out of the blue my Airdisk (a 500GB USB Hard Drive) won’t mount to the Airport Extreme anymore. If I connect the USB hard drive to my computer directly, it mounts just fine, all of the files are there, and there is seemingly no issue with the drive or the cable.
Things I’ve tried so far
- Restarting the Airport Extreme – I did this by unplugging it with the hard drive on, off, plugged in, unplugged, etc. I’ve rebooted it several times.
- Restarting the hard drive – as with the Airport Extreme, I tried multiple combinations in order to get the AE to recognize the disk.
- Update the firmware – as coincidence would have it a new version of the Airport Extreme firmware became available this weekend and so I’ve now updated to that version of both the firmware and the Airport Utility software.
- Trying to directly access the drive through /volumes/TempleArchives/ etc.
- Using the Airport Utility > Manual Setup > Disks pane. The drive does not show up there at all.
Looking at the activity LEDs for the drive it seems as though the Airport Extreme never really sees the drive being connected at all. Â My last assumption, so far, is that the USB port on my Airport Extreme may have died. My next attempt at seeing if that is true is to connect a printer or some other USB device through that same port to see if that is the cause.
To be updated…
Update June 12, 2009: – Finally, an update! I was so frustrated by this problem that I actually didn’t work on it for months. I hooked up my USB hard drive directly into my laptop and dealt with it.
I’m happy to say that as of today I’ve gotten the USB hard drive mounted to my Airport Extreme again!
I ended up trying most, if not all, of the suggestions in the comments (thanks so much to everyone that wrote out a detailed suggestion for me try, you’re too kind). However it was Scott’s suggestion to connect the USB hard drive to a USB hub prior to plugging the drive into the AExtreme that ended up doing the trick. My Airport Extreme is currently running on firmware 7.3.2, instead of 7.4, and is connected to a USB hub and then to the drive. For now, that is working and I’m sticking with it until I dare update the firmware again to see if the “hub idea” continues to work with the updated version of the firmware.
Again, thanks to all for your suggestions. I hope anyone that finds this (which is about 100 people per day currently) can go through the suggestions and find one that works for them.
Just got a new Airport extreme, with the whole idea being to print to and backup to USB devices connected.
I wish I had seen your post first.
I did not know there was a “disconnect all users before unplugging the hard drive” option in the Airport Setup utility… so I just unplugged the drive while it was idle to set up a USB hub and printer. The printer works. The drive no longer does. So it doesn’t seem to be a dead USB on the Airport unit, if that’s any help.
Hi Colin,
I just found a solution for your problem. I was having the exact same problem and nothing seemed to worked. It was as if the usb port was dead. Well, I rolled back the firmware and voila! it worked!
From the Apple forum: (FAQ on Airport base firmware)
“If I have a computer or device that does not work well with an AWD with the latest update, how can I install previous (earlier) versions of firmware? ”
follow this link and at the bottom of the page almost is the answer… good luck!
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1218
I’m going to try this today. I very much appreciate you taking the time to post this. I’ll update the post when I know!
You can do this by using the Airport Utility and clicking on the firmware version, you can downgrade from there.
And unfortunately this method doesn’t work for me…
I bought the airport extreme in part so I could network my printer & it has NEVER worked thru the AE…I don’t know if my USB is dead or what…and NOW my pc’s will print (directly to the USB on printer, but my MacBook won’t even print directly with the USB because I’ve been messing with the drivers (like an idiot)…I uninstalled/reinstalled them…and managed to make it so I can’t print at all on the Mac.
I was able to print wirelessly (just not with my printer directly hooked to the AE) before but then that stopped working which was what got me messing with my drivers. At that time I COULD still print hooked directly via USB…
It’s making me crazy!!!
I truly believe if the AE had just worked right in the first place I wouldn’t be losing my mind right now. And it is a compatible printer (supposedly)…it’s a Canon MX850.
Thanks for letting me vent…and I will watch with interest to see how your situation turns out…I wondered if there was a way to test to see if the usb port was dead…tho I don’t know what difference it would make now I’m out of warranty. beth
To fix your AE and USB share drive issue, try this: (Works for me every time).
Airport Extreme (AE) should be powered on and working
1. Get a powered USB hub and plug it in next to your AE
2. Connect USB hub to AE
3. Connect USB Drive to one of the USB ports on the Hub
This should fix the problem. The Drive should now appear on your Mac/PC.
Just as an update: This is what ultimately has worked for me. I’ve ignored the issue for months and have now got it straightened out yet again by attaching the hard drive to a hub. I’m thinking this has to do with USB cable throughput in some way.
I’m in the same boat as everyone else.
I talked to Apple two days ago and they said they’d ship me a new Airport Extreme. I went to the local Apple store yesterday and plugged in the new one — and it’s the same results.
Apple today said they can’t figure anything out so they considered the issue closed.
AFter that, several forums suggest downgrading the firm ware — but I can’t find it anywhere online. The Airport Utility wants me to locate a version on my hard drive. So I’m stuck.
I’m online with Apple right now and they said because my Airport Extreme is brand new, it’s a dual band model. It can’t be downgraded — it needs the version of the firmware that seems to be at issue for everyone else.
I’ve been escalated to a product specialist and I’m reporting this to them as a known issue with the product — they may not have informed all of their specialists, but this is a known issue because there are so many blogs about it and no solution from Apple.
This is what ended up working for me with a new (May 2009) base station:
• disconnect Belkin USB hub from airport extreme
• power cycle the airport extreme
• unplug all external drives from the USB hub
• wait for the airport extreme light to go solid green
• reconnect the USB hub
• plug one hard drive at a time into the USB hub
The hard drives I have are:
• Micronet Advantage 200 gigs (older)
• LaCie 200 gigs (older)
• Buffalo 1 TB drive — brand new and setup for Time Machine
For whatever reason (the Time Machine drive, the Buffalo brand, the 1TB size or something with the cords), plugging the Buffalo in FIRST all by itself made the airport extreme die right away.
When I plugged the other drives into the hub from a freshly reboot airport extreme, the hub and the airport extreme were great friends. I could then plug in the other two drives, including the Buffalo and everything would be fine.
If I reboot the airport extreme with the Buffalo already plugged in, it dies again.
Again, I don’t know if this is drive specific because no one mentions their gear — or if it’s a Time Machine drive thing because Macs prefer a Time Capsule instead.
noticed, when mounting a dos drive to AE with 4 Mac OS Extended drives already mounted AE lost contact with all the drives. Mounted the dos directly to a desktop instead.
Simply go into Airport Express Utilities, click on advanced and then onto disks. Set to share, you can get the idea from this close…
The external hub worked for me as well.
I just bought a Belkin powered USB 4 port hub and will try it tonight to see if my AE will recognize either or both of my Comstar 250 GB and my Iomega 1.5 TB drives.
Would love to know how you’ve faired. I’m back to having this problem again!
Having the same issue with my Apple Time Capsule. Portable USB hard drives are inconsistently recognized after plugging into the USB port, even though they’re recognized just fine by my MacBook Pro. I’m running the latest firmware and OS. Wondering if this has to do with the amount of power (or lack thereof) that can be transferred by an AirPort Extreme or Time Capsule, or by a mini USB cable. Frustrating in the land of “It Just Works.” AirPort Disk Utility doesn’t recognize that a USB hard drive is even plugged in. I don’t have a USB hub and frankly shouldn’t have to use one if all I want is an AirPort disk attached to my Time Capsule. I’ll keep checking back for answers. Thanks!