Please help me get my home network to work

here is the setup
cable modem-->Airport extreme
1 MBpro wireless
2 PC laptops wireless

1 ethernet desktop
1 ethernet HP photosmart C5180
1 usb hd

printer isn't recoginzed hd isn't showing up

I am used to the plug and play simplicity of my net gear router and I have no idea how to use this airport extreme

I take it you just installed the AirPort Extreme in place of the Netgear?

Chances are your HP printer and USB HDD use static IP that was configured when they were originally setup. And if that's true, they may still be operating on the default subnet the Netgear used.

My recommendation would be to see if you can do a "cold reset" on both and go through the setup process once again. The specifics should be covered in your manual for each device. If a cold reset isn't possible, you will want to check the manuals to see how to reconfigure the network settings.

Find out what IP address your Windows machines or Mac are using while connected to the AirPort Extreme. That should give you some clue as to what subnet those devices should be configured for.

Often wireless routers use IPs in the 192.168.0.x or 192.168.1.x subnet. I believe the AirPort-series devices use 10.0.x.x. So, if the printer (for example) is currently using 192.168.1.100 and you find that your Mac is using 10.0.0.10 you'll need to change it to use something like 10.0.0.100 to put it in the same subnet with the rest of the machines.

After giving up for the night and returning the next day. I found the Airport extreme's ip and dns info. plugged it into the printer and now it all works. thanks for the help.