AirPort: How to mount an AirPort Extreme USB hard disk volume in Mac OS X and Windows

This article explains how to mount an AirPort Extreme USB hard disk volume in Mac OS X and Windows.

Typically, when a USB disk is connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11n), it will automatically become available to users of the network. However, if that option is disabled in AirPort Disk Utility (Mac OS X) or AirPort Disks (Windows), or the network user declines, it can still be accessed using any of appropriate steps below. By default, a user can access the AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11n) over IP by entering the IP address 10.0.1.1.

If you are unsure of the IP address of your AirPort Extreme (802.11n), use AirPort Utility (Mac OS X) or AirPort Disks (Windows) to select your base station. You will see its IP address in the main window.

Note: AirPort Disk Utility is located in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder on a Mac; AirPort Disks is located in Start > All Programs > AirPort on a computer using Microsoft Windows. Open it, or click the AirPort Disk menu bar icon () in Mac OS X, then select the AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11n) to which the USB hard drive is connected.

Mac OS X

Automatically mounting hard disks

1. From the main window of AirPort Disk Utility enable "Show AirPort Disks in the menu bar".

2. Enter the username and password required to access the AirPort Disk(s).

Manually mounting hard disks using the AirPort Disk menu bar item

1. Click the AirPort Disk menu bar icon () and select the Base Station with desired USB hard drive.

2. Select the desired hard disk(s) (AirPort Disk).

3. Enter the username and password required to access the AirPort Disk(s).

Manually mounting Mac OS Extended (HFS+) volumes

1. From the Finder's Go menu choose Connect to Server.

2. Enter the AirPort Extreme Base Station's LAN IP address (by default 10.0.1.1).

3. Enter the username and password required to access the AirPort Disk(s).

4. Select the desired AirPort Disk(s) from the available Volumes.

Manually mounting FAT16/FAT32 volumes

1. From the Finder's Go menu choose Connect to Server.

2. Enter the AirPort Extreme Base Station's LAN IP address preceded by smb:// (for example, smb://10.0.1.1 )

3. Enter the username and password required to access the AirPort Disk(s). Leave the Workgroup field empty unless you have assigned one in AirPort Utility.

4. Select the desired AirPort Disk from the available CIFS (Common Internet File System) volumes

Windows XP and Vista

Note: With AirPort Base Station Update 2007-002 or later, AirPort Disk Agent has been renamed to AirPort Base Station Agent. If you have not installed this update yet, substitute AirPort Disk Agent for AirPort Base Station Agent in the steps below.

Mounting using AirPort Base Station Agent

1. Launch the AirPort Base Station Agent from C:\\Program Files\AirPort\

2. Ensure that the task bar menu is enabled from AirPort Disks

3. Click the AirPort Base Station Agent icon in the Taskbar

4. Enter the user name and password

Mounting by mapping a Network Drive

1. Go to My Computer (Start > My Computer)

2. From the menu, pull down Tools and select "Map Network Drive"

3. Enter a drive letter that is not in use (for example, "Z")

4. Enter the path to the drive. This is formatted as: \\IPaddress\drivename (for example, \\10.0.1.1\mydrive)

Mounting using Server Connection

1. Select Start > Run and enter the IP address of the AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11n). (by default \\10.0.1.1)

2. When prompted, enter a username and password

3. A window will open containing folders for each hard drive connected to the AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11n)