Connecting a PC to AEBS hard drive

[LSUtigers03]

I have two macs and two PCs (1 XP and 1 Vista) on my network. I'm having a hard time getting the PCs to connect to the hard drive that is connected to the AEBS. I've turned on sharing but I can't get the PCs to connect. Both PCs have the Airport Utility installed. Can anyone give me a hand?

 

[LSUtigers03]

What format does the drive have to be so that all the computers can read and write to the drive?

 

[skorpien]

The drive will have to be formatted HFS+ and connected to the AEBS. The PCs will connect to the drive using SMB while Macs use AFP, so the NTFS/FAT32 compatibility issue doesn't apply.

Have you enabled file sharing in AirPort Utility? Also, did you include the workgroup name that the PCs are a part of? Did you add the AEBS's IP address to the list of trusted networks/zones in any software firewalls that you may have installed?

 

[LSUtigers03]

The drive will have to be formatted HFS+ and connected to the AEBS. The PCs will connect to the drive using SMB while Macs use AFP, so the NTFS/FAT32 compatibility issue doesn't apply.

Have you enabled file sharing in AirPort Utility? Also, did you include the workgroup name that the PCs are a part of? Did you add the AEBS's IP address to the list of trusted networks/zones in any software firewalls that you may have installed?

In Disc Utility what format is HFS+? Yes I enabled file sharing. I don't think the PCs are a part of a workgroup but how can I check? The only firewall that would be installed would be what windows has built in and I haven't added the AEBS IP address.

 

[skorpien]

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3509

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/7cf0a853-e53a-40ea-850a-5cef7d1482421033.mspx

http://www.aultcomputer.com/setnetwork.htm

Windows firewall doesn't require you to add your AEBS's IP address to any trusted networks. AFAIK such a list does not exist for it.

 

[LSUtigers03]

I installed MacDrive but it isn't showing up on the PC. From what I read if its HFS+ the installing MacDrive will have the drive show up in My Computer. Do I need to do anything after installing MacDrive to see the drive?

EDIT: When the PC starts it says the Airport Disk became available. When I say to connect and put in the password it says it can't connect and to make sure netBIOS is enabled. I enabled netBIOS but it still won't connect and it keeps telling me to make sure netBIOS is enabled even though it is.

EDIT 2: Ok I'm not sure which one of the million things I tried but the drive is showing up as a network drive on the XP computer. Now on to the Vista computer. Thanks for your help.

Ok I did the same steps on the Vista machine and its not working. MacDrive can't find the network drive like it does on the XP machine. Does Vista require something different than XP?

 

[skorpien]

I'm not using MacDrive at all. It's the AEBS that handles the way the computers communicate with the HFS+ drive, so a third party program is not required to allow Windows machines to see it.

I wish I had my Vista machine with me at the moment, but as it is I don't so I can't be of too much help. The only suggestions I can make are to make sure that your network is set to private in Vista and to make sure that you install AirPort Utility (which comes with AirPort Base Station Agent) directly from the Apple site (making sure it's the latest version) onto your Vista machine.

AirPort Base Station Agent should detect the hard drive connected to your AEBS and mount it automatically on startup.

 

[LSUtigers03]

I'm not using MacDrive at all. It's the AEBS that handles the way the computers communicate with the HFS+ drive, so a third party program is not required to allow Windows machines to see it.

I wish I had my Vista machine with me at the moment, but as it is I don't so I can't be of too much help. The only suggestions I can make are to make sure that your network is set to private in Vista and to make sure that you install AirPort Utility (which comes with AirPort Base Station Agent) directly from the Apple site (making sure it's the latest version) onto your Vista machine.

AirPort Base Station Agent should detect the hard drive connected to your AEBS and mount it automatically on startup.

When the computer is started a message pops up and asks what I want to do with the network that was found. I tell it to log in with the password but nothing happens and it stops responding and I have to force quit it. It did this on the XP machine as well but that connected.