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Advance The Man

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 6, 2005
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Have an external hard drive formatted OSX format. If I hooked external hard drive to AEBS to use as AirPort Disk, would a Windows computer be able to read this external?
 
Have an external hard drive formatted OSX format. If I hooked external hard drive to AEBS to use as AirPort Disk, would a Windows computer be able to read this external?

Yes, the PC would be able to access the hard drive through the AirPort Extreme. It will be connecting with the SMB protocol and will not know, or care, what format the hard drive is formatted in.
 
what do you have to format the drives into to be able to both read and write to them with windows and max?

i know fat 32 will work but with limitations and i do not believe mac will write to an ntfs drive, but i maybe wrong?

thanks for any help!
 
The drive has to be formatted HFS+ journaled. Both Macs and PCs will be able to access it with full read/write capabilities. The format of the drive has nothing to do with compatibility since it's the base station itself that handles how different computers connect to it. Macs use AFP to connect to the drive while PCs use SMB. PCs will show the drive as formatted FAT32, but there are no file size restrictions.
 
The drive has to be formatted HFS+ journaled. Both Macs and PCs will be able to access it with full read/write capabilities. The format of the drive has nothing to do with compatibility since it's the base station itself that handles how different computers connect to it. Macs use AFP to connect to the drive while PCs use SMB. PCs will show the drive as formatted FAT32, but there are no file size restrictions.

Thats AWESOME!!

sorry to high jack the thread and ask formatting questions:(

but how come the bootcamp shows my 2nd drive with windows on it, as ntfs?

Can i format to hfs+ and install windows on it? or do i need ntfs for the operating system, but through the AE i can do the others as hfs+?
 
You got it right with the second statement. I'm not too sure as I haven't installed Windows on my Mac yet, but I'm sure it has to either be NTFS or FAT32 (not sure about the FAT32 one) for you to be able to install Windows on it. Windows isn't even capable of reading HFS+ formatted drives without the help of third party software if it's directly connected to a drive. The only reason it can see the HFS+ formatted drive attached to a TC or AEBS is because the base stations themselves allow Windows to see it.
 
Received AirPort Extreme and it set up fine on my apple products. I loaded the CD to the iMac and my Windows XP machine because the manual said you needed to. Big mistake. All I needed to do for the Windows machine was to plug the ethernet cable into the computer. After calling AppleCare they said only one computer needs it and since the machine that isn't working is the Microsoft Windows product, it's not their problem. A little surprised, but then again I guess they aren't gonna help me on it.

How do I get Windows XP machine to simply use the ethernet cable directly from the Airport Extreme Base? It must be some simple change, but I don't know squat about computers. Please help if you know.
 
Alright, so first the connection. Do you have the ethernet cable running from one of the LAN ports on your AEBS to your PC? The LAN ports have a drawing that looks something like this <...> overtop of them. I also assume that you have the cable running from your modem to your AEBS connected to the WAN port (the one that looks a bit like a flower).

Second thing I'll ask - is your Mac connecting to the Internet at all? If so, how is it connecting to the AEBS? Wired or WiFi?

Third, if the Mac is connecting and you have the PC set up properly, is there another ethernet cable you could try to use instead?

And finally, is your PC obtaining its IP address automatically? In Control Panel, under Network Connections, right click your Local Area Connection and select Properties. Select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) in your list and click Properties. Now, does it have "Obtain IP address automatically" selected in the General tab? If not, select it since the IP range of the AEBS is different than most routers by default.

One other thing to consider, do you have any firewalls installed other than the default Windows firewall? If so, you may need to add the AEBS IP address to the list of trusted networks for it to work.
 
Alright, so first the connection. Do you have the ethernet cable running from one of the LAN ports on your AEBS to your PC? The LAN ports have a drawing that looks something like this <...> overtop of them. I also assume that you have the cable running from your modem to your AEBS connected to the WAN port (the one that looks a bit like a flower).

Second thing I'll ask - is your Mac connecting to the Internet at all? If so, how is it connecting to the AEBS? Wired or WiFi?

Third, if the Mac is connecting and you have the PC set up properly, is there another ethernet cable you could try to use instead?

And finally, is your PC obtaining its IP address automatically? In Control Panel, under Network Connections, right click your Local Area Connection and select Properties. Select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) in your list and click Properties. Now, does it have "Obtain IP address automatically" selected in the General tab? If not, select it since the IP range of the AEBS is different than most routers by default.

One other thing to consider, do you have any firewalls installed other than the default Windows firewall? If so, you may need to add the AEBS IP address to the list of trusted networks for it to work.

Thank you so much. It was the 'IP address automatically' wasn't checked.

Now everything is working with the exception I cannot see the PC from the iMac and vice versa. The shared printer via the AEBS is working fine. fyi, the iMac is wirelessly connected.

Any ideas on how to see the PC from the iMac? Prior to the AEBS I could see it.
 
My guess would be the firewall issue. I know for my PC to be able to see any networked devices on my TC, I had to add 10.0.1.1 (the default base station IP address) to my list of trusted networks/zones on my PC's firewall program. Each program is different, so I'm not sure the steps you'd need to take for your particular one.

Other than that, I'm really not sure what the issue would be. Hopefully somebody else will be able to help out with this. I'll post back if I get any other ideas. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.
 
Thank you so much. It was the 'IP address automatically' wasn't checked.

Now everything is working with the exception I cannot see the PC from the iMac and vice versa. The shared printer via the AEBS is working fine. fyi, the iMac is wirelessly connected.

Any ideas on how to see the PC from the iMac? Prior to the AEBS I could see it.

If your using XP pro, then you need to turn file sharing on.
If your using XP home then it should be turned on by default.
If your using Vista Im not sure but the same should apply.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304040
 
If your using XP pro, then you need to turn file sharing on.
If your using XP home then it should be turned on by default.
If your using Vista Im not sure but the same should apply.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304040

I have XP Home. Do you have to load the Airport Utility Software on the XP machine, or is that only if the machine is wireless? I have the XP cpt set up via ethernet cable to AEBS
 
I have the AIr-Port Extreme Base Station. I have a 1TB HDD hooked up and have never had a problem, that is until recently. Now my Windows computers both Vista and XP see and communicate with it no problem. My Mac-Book Pro however has become hit and miss.... with more missing than hitting. Only about 1 out of 5 start-ups end in a successful connection. This seems to have happened since my last Windows AEBS update. In addition to this one of the last times I was actually able to get the connection I was trying to transfer some photos and the speed was dismal.

Has there been any known issues with the latest firmware?

I have un-plugged, re-booted everything countless times. This is frustrating to say the least.:mad:
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

^
The iMac (via wireless) in my setup has slowed down to G speeds. No idea why. I'm sick of being a repair man to the computer and software problems. I'm gonna leave if as is for now.
 
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