Airport Ext setup: "Disk needs repair" issue

[vkirk]

I am setting up a new AEBS w/ external drive (Seagate Free Agent pro) to my mac G4 and HP PC. Wireless connection is ok but I received the msg. "Disk Needs repair--connect the disk to your computer to repair the disk" This sounds like a formatting isuue but I have done a lot of research was told by the Apple store (each of 3 visits) and in forums that I could see a PC-formatted drive when networked through the AEBS!!!!!!! (not older versions of AEBS though)
--Any new advice on this? Has anyone received this error msg?

--Also, If I have to reformat the drive, the apple store said I could use the HFS+ and PCs will be able to read/write to the drive. Is this the case? I'd like to avoid FAT 32. Any experience with HFS+ used by PC?

thanks for any help out of this long learning curve.

 

[eluk]

To write to HFS+ you need to use a third party app.

MacDrive
or
MacFuse

 

[vkirk]

Just found out after working w/ apple support I have to use FAT 32 if also connecting a PC to the AEXT Base Station. So, How do I reformat the PC NTFS drive from my mac to the FAT 32 format? Do I need third party software?

thx

 

[mkrishnan]

I'm pretty sure you can use HFS+ as long as you don't need for the PC to be able to directly connect to the drive -- i.e. it can see the drive through the airdisk, without any special software, but you won't be able to plug it in directly into the Windows PC.

To reformat in either HFS or FAT32....

- Plug the drive directly into the Mac
- Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
- Select the topmost entry for that drive... typically there'll be an entry with another entry nested in it; you want the "outside" or upper entry.
- Click the partition tab.
- Click the options button; select the GUID partition scheme for HFS+ or the MBR scheme for FAT32.
- Click on Volume Scheme and select one partition. Select the appropriate option from the pulldown for partition type (HFS+ = Mac OS Extended (Journaled)).
- Give it a name to your pleasing.
- Hit the partition button.

That's it. It should automatically format / erase the partitions also. Be aware that you lose any data on it.

 

[vkirk]

done.
i was confused as there was not a FAT 32 option. I just selcted MS DOS and it formatted it to FAT 32.

thx