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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Linkstation

nardeezy - Apr 18, 2005 - 10:55 am

I recently purchased a Mac Mini (1.42ghz, 512ram, Bluetooth+Airport Extreme) and installed it to my HDTV and Home Theater. It's looks and sounds fantastic. However, I am having some trouble re-communicating with my network hard drive (Buffalo Linkstation 120gb) after a "restart" or from "sleep" mode.

The Linkstation is connected via ethernet to my Netgear wireless router. I have no issues in communication with the router at all, internet is fine. The Buffalo Linkstation is compatible with Mac and PC. Also, the drive's that I created on the Linkstation are to be read/write access for both Win/Mac.

Basically, I would setup the network from "finder" so it would communicate with the specific drive path's (M:\, Z:\, etc.) and drag to the desktop or sidebar. Whenever I "restart" or wake the Mac Mini from "sleep" the drive locations have to be found again and sometimes it doesn't find the Linkstation right away. E.g. on my Windows XP machine I mapped the Linkstation drive locations on my desktop and it's always there regardless of shutdown, restart, hibernate, or standby mode (no access problems ever).

Where it really frustrate's me the most is using itunes. I would specify itunes to import any music to one of the Linkstation drive (M folders (I keep all music on the network hard drive) but when I restart or wake the Mac Mini it resets the location to the default path on the Macintosh HD. All of the music in the itunes "library" is coming from the Linkstation M: drive. The funny thing is that it will always play the music in the library after "restart" and "sleep" modes.

Please help, I called Buffalo Tech Support and they could not help me.

Vile - Apr 21, 2005 - 12:17 am

Are you using dynamic IP addresses? If so, try using a static and see if the problem persists.


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nardeezy - Apr 21, 2005 - 9:59 am

How would I do that?

Vile - Apr 21, 2005 - 10:53 am

In your System Preferences go to Network then the TCP/IP Tab of the Airport Conneciton. Look at the IP address, Netmask, Gateway, and DNS Server IPs that is currently being used, and write it down. On the "Configure IPv4" drop-down menu, choose "Manually" instead of "DHCP", and enter in the information you wrote down, except on the IP address change the last number to something different (i.e. change 192.168.1.101 to 192.168.1.58). Now your connection will be static. Test it out to make sure you have connectivity. If so, power down, and power back up to see if the problem persists.

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nardeezy - Apr 21, 2005 - 10:57 am

From my understanding dynamic IP address means the IP address constantly changes and static stays the same. So, I am going to change the Mac Mini so that it is receiving a static IP address? I'm not even sure if "receiving" is the correct word. Anyways, When I hooked up the Mac Mini to my network did it connect via my network as dynamic by default? I'm confused as to why this would make it work if it works at all? Sorry to trouble you but could explain what changing from dynamic to static would do?

Vile - Apr 21, 2005 - 11:19 am

Absolutely. I'll try to make this as simple as possible. Each time you turn your system on and off, you grab a new IP from the router (or whatever is providing DHCP). Each network device has an ID of it's own, called a MAC address. Once your Buffalo sees that an IP is linked to a specific MAC address, it associates the two together. If you pull a new IP address, it will see the new IP with the MAC address of the old IP in it's address resolution table. With you sleeping and restarting, you are dropping the card and having it come back up and sending out a network broadcast saying that your MAC address holds the IP that you have. This tells every device on the network to update it's address resolution tables to know your IP goes with your Airport's MAC address. When dealing with shorter amounts of down time, the IP doesn't normally change, but if you turn if off for a long period of time, and bring it back up 6 or 7 hours later, it requests a new IP Lease (each one has a time limit) from whatever is giving out your IP addresses.

The reason I brought up to try static is so that the Buffalo always knows the IP that goes with the MAC address of your Buffalo. If the problem persists, you can easily change it back by changing the "Manually" back to "Using DHCP".


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nardeezy - Apr 21, 2005 - 11:28 am

That was pretty deep. Okay, having said that and not knowing if switching from DHCP to static on the Mac Mini will solve the problem, why would the Mac Mini have issues but my XP machine not? When I setup my XP machine with my router and Buffalo it was pretty straight forward. I did not configure the dynamic or static settings. I just did what the manual said to do and "bam" it was setup. Well, I had to map the specific drives but I never had a problem with the XP machine not recognizing the Buffalo drives after startup, hibernate or power-up. Is it something with Apple's OS 10.3.8? Anyways, I won't get to try it until tonight, I'm at work right now but I hope that it works. If it doesn't work would you happen to have another solution to find the root cause?

nardeezy - Apr 21, 2005 - 10:22 pm

It didn't work. When I changed to static I changed my IP address to what you put. 192.168.0.58. It wouldn't connect to the internet.

Vile - Apr 21, 2005 - 10:30 pm

I'm sorry. That was as an example. What address do you pull when using DHCP? Take that IP address, and just change the last number to something far from that IP that is between 3 and 254.

Another question, sometimes OSX doesn't automount as quick as it should, or the icon doesn't show. If you navigate in the finder to the folder where the drive is being mounted, is anything in there?

Sorry for all the trouble. I'm just trying to pinpoint the problem.

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nardeezy - Apr 22, 2005 - 12:13 am

That's what I did. I only changed the last series of number. That's why I used 58. Also, what's automount? Is that when it looks for networked servers? Anyways, when I open itunes itll play my music on the library which is located on the Buffalo drive. However, I always have to go in and change the setting where the imported files are to be saved. It always rests back to the default location on the Macintosh HD. Lastly, It would be nice to have my other ves pp up automatically. I always have to re-connect to find the drives. E.g. I have M: for music, V: for videos, etc. Maybe I should put them all in one drive ith the folders in the drive?

Vile - Apr 22, 2005 - 5:01 pm

Automount is where it looks for a drive to connect to during bootup. That could be a good idea to try one folder, but I'm not sure how much that will resolve the problem. You really shouldn't have to, but something worth trying.

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nardeezy - Apr 22, 2005 - 5:05 pm

I noticed that there are a lot of settings under "sharing". I do not know much about what to modfy and how it would effect security. Any suggestions?

Vile - Apr 22, 2005 - 8:35 pm

Each different service has it's own security risk. As long as you use a username and password for your accounts, you should be ok in the ways of home network security.

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