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MommaRoth's avatar
MommaRoth
Aspirant
Nov 06, 2016
Solved

Nighthawk r7300 doesn't recognize external hard drive

Hi all - (I searched for this in the community but didn't quite find the solution.  If I've missed it please post a link & sorry for the trouble!)   I run a small home office and recently bought a ...
external hard drive
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Troubleshooting
USB
  • MommaRoth's avatar
    MommaRoth
    Nov 18, 2016

    Hi ElaineM

     

    Thanks for your response.  I ended up returning the drive - no amount of partitioning or driver-downloads made it readable.  I'm going to go back to the list of recommended external hard drives and see if I can find an exact match.  I must say it's incredibly frustrating that this Netgear router is so persnickity about it's compatability. 

     

    I appreciate you spending a bit of time with me on this.

     

    Regards,  Susan

ElaineM's avatar
ElaineM
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Nov 07, 2016

Hi MommaRoth

 

Welcome to the community!

 

5TB is to big for the router to read and handle. 

Did you try USB stick? See if that will work. 

Try to partition the HD and see if it will read it. 

Also take note that the router will not be able to read the external hard drive if it requires software to be installed on the PC or if it's password protected. 

 

ReadySHARE USB Drives Compatibility List

MommaRoth's avatar
MommaRoth
Aspirant
Nov 08, 2016

Hi ElaineM

 

So I erased the drive and then Mac OS extended journaled the partitions off - 3T & 2T.  Still nothing. I then split down to 1T, then split to 500GB and then, finally 16GB (the size of the USB stick i tried initially & which it was able to read) - all Mac OS extended journaled.  Still nothing.

 

(for the record, when it's plugged directly into my computer it works fine.  It's just the router that doesn't recognize the HDD in any of these formats)

 

I did some digging and found that it might need a driver: http://www.seagate.com/support/software/paragon/

 

Followed all the instructions & it still isn't recognized through ReadySHARE.  I am absolutely at a loss.  I would appreciate any thoughts you, or anyone else, might have before I return this!  (oh for goodness sake, am I even going to be able to return it now that I've worked on it??)d

 

TiA - Susan

  • ElaineM's avatar
    ElaineM
    NETGEAR Employee Retired
    Nov 09, 2016

    It just answers that the router cannot handle such drive. 

    • MommaRoth's avatar
      MommaRoth
      Aspirant
      Nov 18, 2016

      Hi ElaineM

       

      Thanks for your response.  I ended up returning the drive - no amount of partitioning or driver-downloads made it readable.  I'm going to go back to the list of recommended external hard drives and see if I can find an exact match.  I must say it's incredibly frustrating that this Netgear router is so persnickity about it's compatability. 

       

      I appreciate you spending a bit of time with me on this.

       

      Regards,  Susan

      • ElaineM's avatar
        ElaineM
        NETGEAR Employee Retired
        Nov 18, 2016

        You are very welcome. 

        I hope you'll get this working soon.