How to access External Drive connected in Airport Express?

JoeyDee · Nov 19th, 2009, 03:31 PM

Hey guys.

I have an airport express and on it i have conencted my WD external drive and I was wondering how can I access it on a network? Where would I need to go to set that up?

Thanks.

rgray · Nov 19th, 2009, 03:38 PM

Assuming the disk has been formatted and attached to the Express, open Airport Utility, select the Express and click "Manual Setup". You will see "Disks" in the toolbar.
Screen shot 2009-11-19 at 15.37.13 .png

JoeyDee · Nov 19th, 2009, 03:44 PM

Hey Rgray.

I dont see the Disk icon

Now when the external hard drive is plugged into my MacBook Pro I can see it...

And finally here's the Disk Utility info (hard drive now plugged directly to macbook)

i-rui · Nov 19th, 2009, 04:22 PM

there is no air disk with the Airport EXPRESS (the usb port is for wireless printing only).

Only the Airport Extreme (the rectangular one) and Time Capsules support a USB hard drive .

JoeyDee · Nov 19th, 2009, 04:36 PM

Thanks for letting me know Rui...

Here's a question; how can I connect my WD External Drive to my iMac and share it across other computers at home on wireless?

i-rui · Nov 19th, 2009, 04:44 PM

Are the other computers running Leopard/Snow Leopard?

If they are you can easily share your hard drives By clicking in a window in the finder (left side). You may have to do some initial setting up for file sharing in your system preferences.

rgray · Nov 19th, 2009, 05:06 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by i-rui
	there is no air disk with the Airport EXPRESS (the usb port is for wireless printing only). Only the Airport Extreme (the rectangular one) and Time Capsules support a USB hard drive .

Right....

My bad....

JoeyDee · Nov 19th, 2009, 08:28 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by i-rui
	*Are the other computers running Leopard/Snow Leopard?* If they are you can easily share your hard drives By clicking in a window in the finder (left side). You may have to do some initial setting up for file sharing in your system preferences.

The iMac that I am connecting it has Leopard, the other Macbook Pros all have Snow... my question Rui is; how can let's say computer B & C connected to the external hard drive on computer A?

Don't I need to go to "GO/CONNECT TO SERVER" and then put the ip address of the iMac?

chas_m · Nov 19th, 2009, 08:30 PM

I note with interest that the drive in question is formatted "Apple Partition Map," which is used primarily by pre-Leopard, pre-Intel Macs. You may wish to reformat that to GUID, particularly if you ever want to use that drive as an Intel-bootable backup.

i-rui · Nov 19th, 2009, 09:16 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by JoeyDee
	The iMac that I am connecting it has Leopard, the other Macbook Pros all have Snow... my question Rui is; how can let's say computer B & C connected to the external hard drive on computer A? Don't I need to go to "GO/CONNECT TO SERVER" and then put the ip address of the iMac?

On the imac go into your system preferences, and then click 'sharing'. in that preference pane you're going to have to check the 'file sharing' box on the left. If you want everyone on the network to be able to access the drive the easiest way would be to make the drive a public folder. In the 'public folder' box click the '+' button and select the external. You can also set up the drive to be only accessible by certain users, and password protected....but thats a bit more involved and i'll leave it to you to research that.

Now when you're on the macbook pros (as long as they're on the same network) you should see a 'shared' section on the left side of expanded windows in the finder. Under the shared tab you should see the imac (or whatever the computer's name is).