Monday, January 7, 2013

[Gizmo - http://gizmo.web.id] Automatically mount an AirPort-attached USB drive

Gizmo - http://gizmo.web.id has posted a new item, 'Automatically mount an
AirPort-attached USB drive'

Reader Alec Lancaster finds it too much trouble to mount a remote disk. He
writes:



Ive attached a USB hard drive to my AirPort Extreme Base Station and use it as a
storage location for all the computers on my network. This is convenient but I
hate having to manually mount the drive whenever I log out or restart one of my
Macs. Is there a way to configure it so it automatically mounts on each Macs
desktop?



There is. One way to do this is to open a Finder window, select your base
station from the sidebar (found under the Shared setting), and mount the drive.
Then launch System Preferences, select the Users & Groups preference (called
Accounts in earlier versions of the Mac OS), click on the Lock icon, enter your
user name and password, and click Unlock. Now click on the Login Items tab and
drag the icon of the mounted drive into the list of login items. Quit System
Preferences. When you next log in or restart your Mac, the drive attached to
your base station should automatically mount.

Unless it doesnt.

And I offer these words of weasel because there are times when this doesnt work.
And I honestly havent a clue why. But I have found a more reliable solution that
goes a little something like this.

Launch Automator and in the template sheet that appears select Application and
click the Choose button. In Automators Search field enter server. From the
results that appear below, drag the Get Specified Servers and Connect to Servers
actions into the workflow area. Click the Add button in the Get Specified
Servers action and in the Choose URL window that appears, select your base
station. An address along the lines of smb://10.0.1.1:445 will appear in the
Server Address field. Click OK.

Click the Run button in the workflow window. If youre prompted for a name and
password for the server, make sure that Registered User is selected and enter
your Macs user name but the base stations passwordnot the network password but
rather the password necessary to configure the base station. Then enable the
Remember This Password In My Keychain option and click Connect. The drive
attached to the base station will mount on the desktop. Save the workflow to the
desktop.

As before, well add the workflow application to your login items. Same idea
here: Unlock the preference and drag the workflow into the login items area.
When you next log in or restart your Mac, the drive should mount. Repeat this
procedure for each Mac you'd like to use with the networked drive.


You may view the latest post at
http://gizmo.web.id/automatically-mount-an-airport-attached-usb-drive/

Best regards,
http://gizmo.web.id

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