Time Machine and Airport Extreme/Seagate external hard drive problems

[Dman77]

We've got two Macbooks and today bought an Airport Extreme to replace our Netgear router and to act as ready back up with our Seagate hard drive.

However, I can't get Time Machine to acknowledge the Seagate unless it's plugged directly into the USB on the Macbook itself. It doesn't show up when it's plugged into the USB on the Airport Extreme.

When going through the Airport Utility, upon accessing the Extreme base unit I can see the hard drive, so it's definitely working. I can back up through the back door via the Extreme itself if that makes sense, but we both want to back up to the same hard drive and want it to do this automatically through the Time Machine.

Anyone else come across this, got any remedies? 30 minutes on the phone to Applecare gave me no joy, if I can't sort it out I'll have to take it back and get a Time Capsule but Idon't really want to go down that route if it isn't absolutely necessary.

Thanks

 

[kkelly122]

the airport extreme cant be use time machine, only time capsule is capable of using time machine. hooking up a usb hdd to the airport extreme only functions as a network hdd (sharing files ect..) time machine wont work with the airport extreme

 

[TedTimmis]

Can't Find Seagate Hard Drive on Airport Extreme Network

I just plugged in my Seagate Free Agent hard drive to the USB port on my Airport Extreme Gigabit Router. It appears not to be recognized. I went through the Airport utility but that didn't seem to help. Does anyone know what the trick is to get the network to recognize the hard drive. Also, once it it recognized, does anyone know how to find it on a networked computer with Vista? Any response would be appreciated.

 

[THeBadMonkey]

I just plugged in my Seagate Free Agent hard drive to the USB port on my Airport Extreme Gigabit Router. It appears not to be recognized. I went through the Airport utility but that didn't seem to help. Does anyone know what the trick is to get the network to recognize the hard drive. Also, once it it recognized, does anyone know how to find it on a networked computer with Vista? Any response would be appreciated.

are you looking at the drive from the Vista machine or your Mac? If it is on the Vista machine I believe you need an application called Bonjour which I believe comes with the lastest version of iTunes, using that it should allow you to see the Airport extreme and the connected hard drive. Also have you tried plugging the HDD directly into your machine to check that it works.

To navigate to another PC from vista you either type \\PC_NAME_Here where the PC name is the assigned name of the other PC or you can use its IP address.

To determine it's IP address (again assuming its a windows box) go to start and then run and type CMD then press return. this will bring you to the command prompt. From there type ipconfig and press enter. This will give you basic information about the computers network connection which will include its name and its IP address. It will look something like 192.168.0.108

you can then type the ip address into your explorer window. et volia you will see the shares set up on the other machine.

As far as I am aware a Mac works the same (I haven't done this yet) but the PC won't read any of the information on the Mac.

 

[TedTimmis]

Connecting Seagate Drive to Airport Extreme

Hey Badmonkey,
Thanks for the reply. I used the Bonjour software which came with the router as you indicated, but the Bonjour software only refers to shared printers. Initiating the Bonjour software wizard, it allows one to select from any networked printers. Unfortunately, the the hard drive is not listed. Also, neither the router nor the hard drive are listed under "My Computer". Shouldn't these devices be listed? I will check Itunes and the Apple website to see if there is newer versions of the software, although I just bought the drive.

I also hope you could clarify one point you made. You stated,"to navigate to another PC from vista you either type \\PC_NAME_Here where the PC name is the assigned name of the other PC... " First, how does one find the name of the PC? Secondly, where does one type in the name to navigate to that PC?
Again, any help that you or anyone else could extend would be much appreciated. Thanks.