<img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk.jpg" style="padding: 10pt 10pt 7pt 10pt;" align="left">The regular readers of Computer Audiophile are well aware that I often recommend connecting an external hard drive to the Apple Airport Extreme Base Station. This removes the sound of the hard drive from your listening room and can clean up the look of your equipment rack. For those of you using this configuration and still running OS X Tiger you can mount the AirDisk automatically through the airport disk utility. If you've upgraded to OS X Leopard you may have noticed that the airport disk utility has disappeared and with it went the ability to auto mount an AirDisk. After wasting time trying to figure out an Apple supported solution I decided to create my own auto-mount application through the Apple Automator. What follows are my step by step instructions with screenshots for creating your own Automator application and launch it at startup. If you want to skip most of this feel free to download the Automator app that I've created.<!--more-->
<center>
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Step 01. Open the Apple Automator application and chose Custom.
</center>
<center>
Step 02. Select Files & Folders in the far left column and Get Specified Servers in the middle column.
<a href="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p1.png"><img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p1.jpg" alt="Mount AirDisk"></a>
</center><center>click to enlarge</center>
<center>
Step 03. Drag Get Specified Servers over to the right column.
<a href="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p2.png"><img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p2.jpg" alt="Mount AirDisk"></a>
</center><center>click to enlarge</center>
<center>
Your screen should now look like this.
<a href="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p3.png"><img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p3.jpg" alt="Mount AirDisk"></a>
</center><center>click to enlarge</center>
<!pagebreak-->
<center>
Step 04. Click Add and enter the IP address of your Airport Extreme Base Station in this format. If you don't know the IP address of your AEBS open the airport utility and the address will be displayed on the opening page.
<a href="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p4.png"><img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p4.jpg" alt="Mount AirDisk"></a>
</center><center>click to enlarge</center>
<center>
Select OK and your screen should look like this.
<a href="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p5.png"><img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p5.jpg" alt="Mount AirDisk"></a>
</center><center>click to enlarge</center>
<!--pagebreak-->
<center>
Step 05. Select Files & Folders in the far left column and Connect to Servers in the middle column. Then drag Connect to Servers over to the right column.
<a href="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p6.png"><img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p6.jpg" alt="Mount AirDisk"></a>
</center><center>click to enlarge</center>
<center>
Your screen should look like this
<a href="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p7.png"><img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p7.jpg" alt="Mount AirDisk"></a>
</center><center>click to enlarge</center>
<!--pagebreak-->
<center>
Step 06. Select your AirDisk on your desktop and drag it into the Connect to Servers box as shown below.
<a href="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p9.png"><img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p9.jpg" alt="Mount AirDisk"></a>
</center><center>click to enlarge</center>
<center>
Step 07. Select File > Save As
<a href="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p10.png"><img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p10.jpg" alt="Mount AirDisk"></a>
</center><center>click to enlarge</center>
<center>
Call this new creation Mount AirDisk, save it to your favorite location, and make sure the file format says Application.
<a href="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p11.png"><img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p11.jpg" alt="Mount AirDisk"></a>
</center><center>click to enlarge</center>
<!--pagebreak-->
<center>
Step 08. Go into System Preferences
<a href="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p12.png"><img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p12.jpg" alt="Mount AirDisk"></a>
</center>
<center>
Step 09. Under System, select Accounts
<a href="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p13.png"><img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p13.jpg" alt="Mount AirDisk"></a>
</center><center>click to enlarge</center>
<!--pagebreak-->
<center>
Step 10. Select your account on the left. Make sure Login Items is selected on the right. Then select your newly created application called Mount AirDisk in the spot you previously saved it. Drag that application into the Login Items window.
<a href="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p14.png"><img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p14.jpg" alt="Mount AirDisk"></a>
</center><center>click to enlarge</center>
That's it your done. Every time you restart your Mac the hard drive connected to your Airport Extreme Base Station will automatically mount. Thus, whenever you open iTunes there is no need to worry about mounting your music folder first.
If you would like to use the application I created instead of creating your own you will need to make sure your AEBS is using the same internal IP addressing scheme that mine is. Fortunately this is really easy and Apple only gives you the choice of three different selections.
Open the airport utility, select Manual Setup, select Internet, select DHCP, then select 10.0. from the drop down list. Enter the number 1 in the box next to this selection. Just below that, in the DHCP Beginning Address box enter the number 2. In the DHCP Ending Address box enter the number 200 (any number between 2 and 255 can be entered, but 200 will give you plenty of addresses for a home network). Click Update at the bottom.
<center>
<a href="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p0.png"><img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/p0.jpg" alt="Mount AirDisk"></a>
</center><center>click to enlarge</center>
Then download and unzip this file containing the pre-made <a href="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/airdisk/Mount%20AirDisk.zip">Mount AirDisk application</a>.
If you want your AirDisk to mount at startup you'll need to go back up to Step 08 and proceed from there. That's it, your done mounting your AirDisk manually!
Recommended Comments