My LaCie Hard Drive 500 GB USB 2.0, Design by F.A. Porsche, and the AE seem to have some issues as well. It sometimes mounts, sometimes it does not. It also just "goes away". Not sure yet what causes this.
I just bought and configured this very same hard drive for a client of mine, two days ago. I didn't notice any problems then, not even on XP. Just works.
BTW, the AirPort Extreme software CD doesn't seem to have Vista version of AirPort Disk Utility. Is that right ?
I had a problem where my LaCie Disk worked great with AirDisk for a few hours, then hung my mac mini which forced a hard reset and then failed to mount from that point onwards. I tried everything I could think of for a good few hours and checked all over the internet but no joy. Everytime I tried to mount he disk it came back with a mount error and moaned about incorrect password. I resorted to connection the disk locally by USB which worked fine.
Anyway, I happened to be using Terminal and ls'ed the /Volumes directory. Even though I only had one LaCie Disk connected via USB there were multiple directories under /Volumes that referred to the LaCie Disk using numerous variations (e.g. 'LaCie Disk-1', 'LaCie Disk-2', LaCie Disk 1', etc), these did not show up when using the 'mount' command. I figured these were left behind by unsuccessful mounts or something. I unmounted my working USB disk so as to not cause any confusion and then deleted (rm -r) the directories that had anything to do with LaCie Disk so I was left with just my 'Macintosh HD' direcotory. I then plugged the disk back in using USB and it auto mounted fine under 'LaCie Disk' (i hadn't broken anything). I then unmounted the USB disk and plugged it into the Airport Extreme. I then tried to mount the disk via AirDisk and this time it worked. Yay!! )
So it seems that there was some sort of conflict created between some left over directories in /Volumes and the mounting of the AirDisk under the same name.
I get the following error message: disk needs repairs
I connected the drive to my MBP and ran Disk Utility, which reported no problems with the drive at all.
yeah i get the same message (lacie 1t big disk extreme+). i can't find a solution anywhere its been nothing but a headache, glad i didn't get the NAS verison cause this way i can just plug it f/w 800 but not exactly why i pay a huge premium for 'hassle free' apple stuff.
speaking of paying, with leopard at least the time portal or whatevs will hopefully resolve the proplems here (for 130$ damnit) dunno for sure.. anybody got a clue?
I found very little on the web about this issue. Thanks for your contributions.
I installed the AirPort Extreme N and mounted the LaCie 500 Extreme using the USB.
The choice of the LaCie 500 Extreme was made for simplicity and flexibility. Pairing it with the AirPort Extreme N allowed multiple CPUs of different generations to share the backups.
Wireless, printers, and disks mounted and ran perfectly... until I decided to shutdown.
The printers were the first to cease, followed shortly by the LaCie.
I checked the updates to the OS 10.4.10 (none required). I also checked the updates from Canon for all three printers.
Each of the printers required re-Adding from the System Preferences.
The LaCie 500 Extreme still resisted with the message:
"Unknown user, incorrect password, or login is disabled. Please retype the login information or contact the disk's administrator."
Then the PowerBook 1.5 GHz would not Shutdown. It required the 5 second hold on the Power Switch.
I then replugged the LaCie directly into the PowerBook and restarted. The LaCie external did not mount.
I ran Disk Utility 10.5.6 and repaired the LaCie permissions. It gave me the following message:
"Repairing permissions for ?ArtWorld Revisited?
Determining correct file permissions.
Permissions repair complete
User differs on ., should be 0, owner is 99
Group differs on ., should be 80, group is 99
Permissions differ on ., should be drwxrwxr-t , they are drwxr-xr-x
Owner and group corrected on .
Permissions corrected on .
The privileges have been verified or repaired on the selected volume"
... and mounted. I repeated the process for the internal file permissions and shutdown.
I plugged the LaCie 500 Extreme back into the AirPort Extreme and rebooted... Violá!
Revert to firmware 7.1.1 (from 7.1.2) on your basestation.
This does bring back a nasty issue (and maybe more) such as the dropping of the connection to my printer but it's better than losing the connection to these disks all the time.
Same problem with both my 500GB dual drive Lacie and 1.5TB dual drive disk. Also just got off the phone with Apple, apparantley, they figure the base station can't read RAID drives. Unfortunately, I don't have a single disk USB external around to test it with.
They did say there may be an update to "fix" this soon.
I was having the exact same problem for the same reason. Thank you for saving me hours figuring it out. Lety me know when its "Fixed".
I have a Lacie 500GB Big Disk Extreme (Triple Interface), that the Airport Extreme (n) is not mounting.
It's formatted as Mac OS Journalled, and works perfectly if connected directly to my MacBook Pro by USB or Firewire.
When connected to the AE(n), I get the following error message:
I connected the drive to my MBP and ran Disk Utility, which reported no problems with the drive at all. After repeated attempts, with various cables, I updated the firmware on the drive to see if that would solve the problem. It didn't.
Anyone else having problems with their Lacie drives and the new Airport Extreme, especially those of you with the Big Disk Extremes?
I'm having the same problem audiopollution had in the original post a long time ago - did anyone ever have success with solving it?
To wit: I have a 2009 AEBS 802.11n router ("AirPort Extreme (Simultaneously Dual-Band)," running firmware 7.4.2). I have two USB hard drives, both made by Iomega. "Disk A" is a 500 GB drive used by TimeMachine. "Disk B" is a 1.5 TB drive on which I keep my iTunes media. I also have a USB printer; the printer and Disk A are plugged into a powered USB hub, which is, in turn, connected to the AEBS. Both operate perfectly and as expected in this configuration.
When Disk B is plugged into my computer (15" MBP) directly via USB, it operates perfectly. When I try to connect Disk B to the powered USB hub attached to the AEBS (which already has disk A and the printer attached), the AEBS's status light changes from solid green to flashing amber. The AirPort Utility program opens automatically to report that the "Disk needs repair. There is a problem with the disk connected to your Apple wireless device. Connect the disk to your computer to repair the disk." However, when I connect the disk to my computer, it connects, mounts, and operates just fine. DiskUtility reports no problems of any kind.
I've concluded that the problem is not the cables (because they work fine in other configurations), not the USB hub (I had an unpowered model and replaced it with a powered model, and both have the same issue), not the AEBS hardware (since the plugged in devices function fine when I use only drive A and the printer, or just drive A), and not the drives themselves (since one works fine now and both work fine when directly connected). This would seem to leave software issues, and I know little enough about UNIX, permissions files, preference files, etc. that I am not sure what to try. (Turning off IPv6, as someone suggested above, did not seem to make a difference, although that may have been suggested in response to another issue.)
I've been unable to find a solution for this problem on Apple's forums, although it seems to be the same problem that audiopollution originally posted here in Feb '07 before the topic got slightly changed. Has anyone else had this problem and successfully solved it? Any help, links to helpful discussions, insight, or other advice would be very welcome. Thanks!
I'm having the same problem audiopollution had in the original post a long time ago - did anyone ever have success with solving it?
To wit: I have a 2009 AEBS 802.11n router ("AirPort Extreme (Simultaneously Dual-Band)," running firmware 7.4.2). I have two USB hard drives, both made by Iomega. "Disk A" is a 500 GB drive used by TimeMachine. "Disk B" is a 1.5 TB drive on which I keep my iTunes media. I also have a USB printer; the printer and Disk A are plugged into a powered USB hub, which is, in turn, connected to the AEBS. Both operate perfectly and as expected in this configuration.
When Disk B is plugged into my computer (15" MBP) directly via USB, it operates perfectly. When I try to connect Disk B to the powered USB hub attached to the AEBS (which already has disk A and the printer attached), the AEBS's status light changes from solid green to flashing amber. The AirPort Utility program opens automatically to report that the "Disk needs repair. There is a problem with the disk connected to your Apple wireless device. Connect the disk to your computer to repair the disk." However, when I connect the disk to my computer, it connects, mounts, and operates just fine. DiskUtility reports no problems of any kind.
I've concluded that the problem is not the cables (because they work fine in other configurations), not the USB hub (I had an unpowered model and replaced it with a powered model, and both have the same issue), not the AEBS hardware (since the plugged in devices function fine when I use only drive A and the printer, or just drive A), and not the drives themselves (since one works fine now and both work fine when directly connected). This would seem to leave software issues, and I know little enough about UNIX, permissions files, preference files, etc. that I am not sure what to try. (Turning off IPv6, as someone suggested above, did not seem to make a difference, although that may have been suggested in response to another issue.)
I've been unable to find a solution for this problem on Apple's forums, although it seems to be the same problem that audiopollution originally posted here in Feb '07 before the topic got slightly changed. Has anyone else had this problem and successfully solved it? Any help, links to helpful discussions, insight, or other advice would be very welcome. Thanks!
- FNP
I've spent the weekend struggling with this and think I might have cracked it - at least it solved it for me.
Basic scenario - Macbook, Airport Extreme, USB splitter, two external hard drives.
One hard drive has been around for ages, working fine (through the AE and the splitter). Format the second drive using Disk Utility as HFS+, works fine when connected direct to the MacBook via USB, attach it to the AE (either directly to the AE USB port or using the hub) at the light goes orange and the "Disk Needs Repair" message appears.
Connect it to the MacBook again and verify it using Disk Utility and it's fine, connect it back to the AE and it still doesn't work.
The problem seems to be that the Disk and the Partition are formatted differently.
When you buy a disk it was almost certainly formatted as FAT32. Like me you probably went in to Disk Utility and reformatted it as HFS+ but did you format the Partition (like me) or both the Disk and the Partition?
Turns out it's possible to have a disk formatted as FAT32 and the partition formatted as HFS+. When this is the case it seems that the AE gets confused and throw the "Disk Needs Repair" message.
(Note: this applies even if there is only one partition on the disk - they're still separate things as far as Disk Utility is concerned.)
The solution is to format both the disk and the partition to HFS+. Connect the drive directly to the Mac, fire up Disk Utility, select the disk in the left hand pane (that's the top level one, not the indented thing which is the partition), select Erase, pick Mac OS Extended Journaled and start it up.
When it's done, select the partition in Disk Utility's left hand pane (immediately below the disk, slightly indented) and repeat the erase activity with the same settings.
Connect to the AE and you should be good to go.
You can easily check to see whether the partition and disk are formatted differently by just selecting them in Disk Utility and looking at the details in the section at the bottom which gives details of the disk or partition including the format.
I've spent the weekend struggling with this and think I might have cracked it - at least it solved it for me.
Basic scenario - Macbook, Airport Extreme, USB splitter, two external hard drives.
One hard drive has been around for ages, working fine (through the AE and the splitter). Format the second drive using Disk Utility as HFS+, works fine when connected direct to the MacBook via USB, attach it to the AE (either directly to the AE USB port or using the hub) at the light goes orange and the "Disk Needs Repair" message appears.
Connect it to the MacBook again and verify it using Disk Utility and it's fine, connect it back to the AE and it still doesn't work.
The problem seems to be that the Disk and the Partition are formatted differently.
<snip>
THAT, my friend, is the answer - it never occurred to me that it was possible for a one-partition drive to be formatted differently from its partition. And mine was. And once I yanked my files off the problem drive, formatted both drive and partition to HFS+ Journaled (Extended), and plugged the drive back in to my hub, voilÃ*! Problem solved; both my drives now appear, connected through my AE Base Station. Effecting this change makes my computing setup substantially more satisfying - thanks so much, Tyrannosaurs, for wrestling this to the ground. I hope everyone else with this issue will be able to make use of your fix.
THAT, my friend, is the answer - it never occurred to me that it was possible for a one-partition drive to be formatted differently from its partition. And mine was. And once I yanked my files off the problem drive, formatted both drive and partition to HFS+ Journaled (Extended), and plugged the drive back in to my hub, voilÃ*! Problem solved; both my drives now appear, connected through my AE Base Station. Effecting this change makes my computing setup substantially more satisfying - thanks so much, Tyrannosaurs, for wrestling this to the ground. I hope everyone else with this issue will be able to make use of your fix.
I'd like to add to this solution.
I had the same problem with a Lacie BigDisk 500GB, but the above solution didn't do the trick. Well, not entirely.
I realized that I was initializing the drive and partition using firewire, but the AEBS was using USB. So, I thought I had nothing to lose by trying to initialize it using USB. When I connected to the Mac with USB I got a "This drive cannot be used" error. At that moment I was certain I was onto something. So, I went ahead and initialized both the drive and the partition as Mac Extended Journaled.. Hooked back up to the AEBS and it work perfectly.
So, if you are formatting with firewire and it still fails, try USB. It worked for me.
Comments
My LaCie Hard Drive 500 GB USB 2.0, Design by F.A. Porsche, and the AE seem to have some issues as well. It sometimes mounts, sometimes it does not. It also just "goes away". Not sure yet what causes this.
I just bought and configured this very same hard drive for a client of mine, two days ago. I didn't notice any problems then, not even on XP. Just works.
BTW, the AirPort Extreme software CD doesn't seem to have Vista version of AirPort Disk Utility. Is that right ?
I'll keep track to see how it behaves.
- MacBook and Mac Pro operating in a network on 802.11n
- Airport extreme running latest software upgrades (the ones shippped with the hardware were obsolete, this was the key I think)
- LaCie Big disk in its out-of-the box condition.
The disk mounted immediately on both computers and on the Airport base station, and is both quick and silent. I'm totally delighted with it.
I had a problem where my LaCie Disk worked great with AirDisk for a few hours, then hung my mac mini which forced a hard reset and then failed to mount from that point onwards. I tried everything I could think of for a good few hours and checked all over the internet but no joy. Everytime I tried to mount he disk it came back with a mount error and moaned about incorrect password. I resorted to connection the disk locally by USB which worked fine.
Anyway, I happened to be using Terminal and ls'ed the /Volumes directory. Even though I only had one LaCie Disk connected via USB there were multiple directories under /Volumes that referred to the LaCie Disk using numerous variations (e.g. 'LaCie Disk-1', 'LaCie Disk-2', LaCie Disk 1', etc), these did not show up when using the 'mount' command. I figured these were left behind by unsuccessful mounts or something. I unmounted my working USB disk so as to not cause any confusion and then deleted (rm -r) the directories that had anything to do with LaCie Disk so I was left with just my 'Macintosh HD' direcotory. I then plugged the disk back in using USB and it auto mounted fine under 'LaCie Disk' (i hadn't broken anything). I then unmounted the USB disk and plugged it into the Airport Extreme. I then tried to mount the disk via AirDisk and this time it worked. Yay!! )
So it seems that there was some sort of conflict created between some left over directories in /Volumes and the mounting of the AirDisk under the same name.
Hope this helps anyone who has a similar problem.
I get the following error message: disk needs repairs
I connected the drive to my MBP and ran Disk Utility, which reported no problems with the drive at all.
yeah i get the same message (lacie 1t big disk extreme+). i can't find a solution anywhere its been nothing but a headache, glad i didn't get the NAS verison cause this way i can just plug it f/w 800 but not exactly why i pay a huge premium for 'hassle free' apple stuff.
speaking of paying, with leopard at least the time portal or whatevs will hopefully resolve the proplems here (for 130$ damnit) dunno for sure.. anybody got a clue?
I found very little on the web about this issue. Thanks for your contributions.
I installed the AirPort Extreme N and mounted the LaCie 500 Extreme using the USB.
The choice of the LaCie 500 Extreme was made for simplicity and flexibility. Pairing it with the AirPort Extreme N allowed multiple CPUs of different generations to share the backups.
Wireless, printers, and disks mounted and ran perfectly... until I decided to shutdown.
The printers were the first to cease, followed shortly by the LaCie.
I checked the updates to the OS 10.4.10 (none required). I also checked the updates from Canon for all three printers.
Each of the printers required re-Adding from the System Preferences.
The LaCie 500 Extreme still resisted with the message:
"Unknown user, incorrect password, or login is disabled. Please retype the login information or contact the disk's administrator."
Then the PowerBook 1.5 GHz would not Shutdown. It required the 5 second hold on the Power Switch.
I then replugged the LaCie directly into the PowerBook and restarted. The LaCie external did not mount.
I ran Disk Utility 10.5.6 and repaired the LaCie permissions. It gave me the following message:
"Repairing permissions for ?ArtWorld Revisited?
Determining correct file permissions.
Permissions repair complete
User differs on ., should be 0, owner is 99
Group differs on ., should be 80, group is 99
Permissions differ on ., should be drwxrwxr-t , they are drwxr-xr-x
Owner and group corrected on .
Permissions corrected on .
The privileges have been verified or repaired on the selected volume"
... and mounted. I repeated the process for the internal file permissions and shutdown.
I plugged the LaCie 500 Extreme back into the AirPort Extreme and rebooted... Violá!
Let's see how long it lasts ;-)
This does bring back a nasty issue (and maybe more) such as the dropping of the connection to my printer but it's better than losing the connection to these disks all the time.
Same problem with both my 500GB dual drive Lacie and 1.5TB dual drive disk. Also just got off the phone with Apple, apparantley, they figure the base station can't read RAID drives. Unfortunately, I don't have a single disk USB external around to test it with.
They did say there may be an update to "fix" this soon.
I was having the exact same problem for the same reason. Thank you for saving me hours figuring it out. Lety me know when its "Fixed".
I have a Lacie 500GB Big Disk Extreme (Triple Interface), that the Airport Extreme (n) is not mounting.
It's formatted as Mac OS Journalled, and works perfectly if connected directly to my MacBook Pro by USB or Firewire.
When connected to the AE(n), I get the following error message:
I connected the drive to my MBP and ran Disk Utility, which reported no problems with the drive at all. After repeated attempts, with various cables, I updated the firmware on the drive to see if that would solve the problem. It didn't.
Anyone else having problems with their Lacie drives and the new Airport Extreme, especially those of you with the Big Disk Extremes?
Ya gotta format the drive to FAT32
just send the outgoing ethernet cable from your airport extreme to your hard drive
maybe everyone already knows this
To wit: I have a 2009 AEBS 802.11n router ("AirPort Extreme (Simultaneously Dual-Band)," running firmware 7.4.2). I have two USB hard drives, both made by Iomega. "Disk A" is a 500 GB drive used by TimeMachine. "Disk B" is a 1.5 TB drive on which I keep my iTunes media. I also have a USB printer; the printer and Disk A are plugged into a powered USB hub, which is, in turn, connected to the AEBS. Both operate perfectly and as expected in this configuration.
When Disk B is plugged into my computer (15" MBP) directly via USB, it operates perfectly. When I try to connect Disk B to the powered USB hub attached to the AEBS (which already has disk A and the printer attached), the AEBS's status light changes from solid green to flashing amber. The AirPort Utility program opens automatically to report that the "Disk needs repair. There is a problem with the disk connected to your Apple wireless device. Connect the disk to your computer to repair the disk." However, when I connect the disk to my computer, it connects, mounts, and operates just fine. DiskUtility reports no problems of any kind.
I've concluded that the problem is not the cables (because they work fine in other configurations), not the USB hub (I had an unpowered model and replaced it with a powered model, and both have the same issue), not the AEBS hardware (since the plugged in devices function fine when I use only drive A and the printer, or just drive A), and not the drives themselves (since one works fine now and both work fine when directly connected). This would seem to leave software issues, and I know little enough about UNIX, permissions files, preference files, etc. that I am not sure what to try. (Turning off IPv6, as someone suggested above, did not seem to make a difference, although that may have been suggested in response to another issue.)
I've been unable to find a solution for this problem on Apple's forums, although it seems to be the same problem that audiopollution originally posted here in Feb '07 before the topic got slightly changed. Has anyone else had this problem and successfully solved it? Any help, links to helpful discussions, insight, or other advice would be very welcome. Thanks!
- FNP
I'm having the same problem audiopollution had in the original post a long time ago - did anyone ever have success with solving it?
To wit: I have a 2009 AEBS 802.11n router ("AirPort Extreme (Simultaneously Dual-Band)," running firmware 7.4.2). I have two USB hard drives, both made by Iomega. "Disk A" is a 500 GB drive used by TimeMachine. "Disk B" is a 1.5 TB drive on which I keep my iTunes media. I also have a USB printer; the printer and Disk A are plugged into a powered USB hub, which is, in turn, connected to the AEBS. Both operate perfectly and as expected in this configuration.
When Disk B is plugged into my computer (15" MBP) directly via USB, it operates perfectly. When I try to connect Disk B to the powered USB hub attached to the AEBS (which already has disk A and the printer attached), the AEBS's status light changes from solid green to flashing amber. The AirPort Utility program opens automatically to report that the "Disk needs repair. There is a problem with the disk connected to your Apple wireless device. Connect the disk to your computer to repair the disk." However, when I connect the disk to my computer, it connects, mounts, and operates just fine. DiskUtility reports no problems of any kind.
I've concluded that the problem is not the cables (because they work fine in other configurations), not the USB hub (I had an unpowered model and replaced it with a powered model, and both have the same issue), not the AEBS hardware (since the plugged in devices function fine when I use only drive A and the printer, or just drive A), and not the drives themselves (since one works fine now and both work fine when directly connected). This would seem to leave software issues, and I know little enough about UNIX, permissions files, preference files, etc. that I am not sure what to try. (Turning off IPv6, as someone suggested above, did not seem to make a difference, although that may have been suggested in response to another issue.)
I've been unable to find a solution for this problem on Apple's forums, although it seems to be the same problem that audiopollution originally posted here in Feb '07 before the topic got slightly changed. Has anyone else had this problem and successfully solved it? Any help, links to helpful discussions, insight, or other advice would be very welcome. Thanks!
- FNP
I've spent the weekend struggling with this and think I might have cracked it - at least it solved it for me.
Basic scenario - Macbook, Airport Extreme, USB splitter, two external hard drives.
One hard drive has been around for ages, working fine (through the AE and the splitter). Format the second drive using Disk Utility as HFS+, works fine when connected direct to the MacBook via USB, attach it to the AE (either directly to the AE USB port or using the hub) at the light goes orange and the "Disk Needs Repair" message appears.
Connect it to the MacBook again and verify it using Disk Utility and it's fine, connect it back to the AE and it still doesn't work.
The problem seems to be that the Disk and the Partition are formatted differently.
When you buy a disk it was almost certainly formatted as FAT32. Like me you probably went in to Disk Utility and reformatted it as HFS+ but did you format the Partition (like me) or both the Disk and the Partition?
Turns out it's possible to have a disk formatted as FAT32 and the partition formatted as HFS+. When this is the case it seems that the AE gets confused and throw the "Disk Needs Repair" message.
(Note: this applies even if there is only one partition on the disk - they're still separate things as far as Disk Utility is concerned.)
The solution is to format both the disk and the partition to HFS+. Connect the drive directly to the Mac, fire up Disk Utility, select the disk in the left hand pane (that's the top level one, not the indented thing which is the partition), select Erase, pick Mac OS Extended Journaled and start it up.
When it's done, select the partition in Disk Utility's left hand pane (immediately below the disk, slightly indented) and repeat the erase activity with the same settings.
Connect to the AE and you should be good to go.
You can easily check to see whether the partition and disk are formatted differently by just selecting them in Disk Utility and looking at the details in the section at the bottom which gives details of the disk or partition including the format.
Blog post on this here: http://youhaventreadthis.tumblr.com/...k-needs-repair
I hope this helps a few people.
I've spent the weekend struggling with this and think I might have cracked it - at least it solved it for me.
Basic scenario - Macbook, Airport Extreme, USB splitter, two external hard drives.
One hard drive has been around for ages, working fine (through the AE and the splitter). Format the second drive using Disk Utility as HFS+, works fine when connected direct to the MacBook via USB, attach it to the AE (either directly to the AE USB port or using the hub) at the light goes orange and the "Disk Needs Repair" message appears.
Connect it to the MacBook again and verify it using Disk Utility and it's fine, connect it back to the AE and it still doesn't work.
The problem seems to be that the Disk and the Partition are formatted differently.
<snip>
THAT, my friend, is the answer - it never occurred to me that it was possible for a one-partition drive to be formatted differently from its partition. And mine was. And once I yanked my files off the problem drive, formatted both drive and partition to HFS+ Journaled (Extended), and plugged the drive back in to my hub, voilÃ*! Problem solved; both my drives now appear, connected through my AE Base Station. Effecting this change makes my computing setup substantially more satisfying - thanks so much, Tyrannosaurs, for wrestling this to the ground. I hope everyone else with this issue will be able to make use of your fix.
THAT, my friend, is the answer - it never occurred to me that it was possible for a one-partition drive to be formatted differently from its partition. And mine was. And once I yanked my files off the problem drive, formatted both drive and partition to HFS+ Journaled (Extended), and plugged the drive back in to my hub, voilÃ*! Problem solved; both my drives now appear, connected through my AE Base Station. Effecting this change makes my computing setup substantially more satisfying - thanks so much, Tyrannosaurs, for wrestling this to the ground. I hope everyone else with this issue will be able to make use of your fix.
I'd like to add to this solution.
I had the same problem with a Lacie BigDisk 500GB, but the above solution didn't do the trick. Well, not entirely.
I realized that I was initializing the drive and partition using firewire, but the AEBS was using USB. So, I thought I had nothing to lose by trying to initialize it using USB. When I connected to the Mac with USB I got a "This drive cannot be used" error. At that moment I was certain I was onto something. So, I went ahead and initialized both the drive and the partition as Mac Extended Journaled.. Hooked back up to the AEBS and it work perfectly.
So, if you are formatting with firewire and it still fails, try USB. It worked for me.