Very Strange Problem With Airport Disk + WD MyBook Drive

[OmegaRed1723]

I'm having a very strange issue with a 1TB WD MyBook drive connected to an AEBS. For over a year the drive was split into two partitions: one for Time Machine backups and one for files to be shared over our home network.

A week ago I had to perform a system restore on my MacBook pro. After doing so, the Time Machine partition on the external drive was corrupted and needed to be wiped clean. I reformatted the entire HD and repartitioned it—2 partitions, each Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Now, the second partition is no longer recognized as an Airport Disk, only the first partition. If I connect the drive directly to my MBP via USB, I can see the second partition, and read/write to it.

It gets stranger. I reformatted the drive, and split it into four equal partitions, labeled Untitled 1-4. When connected to the AEBS, only partitions 1,3, and 4 are viewable. Partition 2 is missing. Again, connecting the disk directly via USB solves the problem.

What is going on? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[skorpien]

Not sure what's going on, but I would try formatting it as one partition, seeing if that partition gets recognized, then create a second partition without reformatting.

 

[OmegaRed1723]

Already tried that. No go. It refuses to read the second partition, no matter how it was configured. So bizzarre, especially since that's how the drive was used for over a year. I was thinking it might actually be my MacBook Pro that was somehow the issue, but I'm unable to manually connect to the 2nd partition with other computers on the network (afp://192.168.1./name of 2nd partition).

 

[skorpien]

Hmm... Have you tried giving the second partition a different name? And pardon the simplistic questions, but have you power cycled the AEBS and made sure file sharing was enabled on that second partition through the Disks tab in AirPort Utility?

 

[OmegaRed1723]

Yes, I did try renaming the second partition to no avail. Unplugging the AEBS for 60 seconds and trying again doesn't work either. I even performed a hard reset on the AEBS and re-created my network to try to shake any cobwebs. No matter what I do, AEBS does not recognize Partition 2. Not only does the partition fail to auto-mount, but it is not recognized under the 'Disks' tab of Airport Utility.

Since I have no idea what's going on, I've resorted to fooling the system. I created 3 partitions on the drive, making Partition 2 as small as possible. Partition 1 is my Time Machine partition, and Partition 3 is my shared file partition. It's working "fine", but something tells my I may not get too much more life out of this drive. Time to start saving for a new storage solution.