Automount an AirDisk in OS X 10.3.x
Dec 26, '07 07:30:04AM
Contributed by: Sven G
I have four Macs at home: an Intel Core2Duo Mac mini, an iBook G4, un upgraded Power Mac G4 AGP, and an upgraded Bondi Blue iMac. With the first three (two of them running OS X 10.5.1, and one on OS X 10.4.11), I have no problem accessing my AirPort disk (except for the usual Leopard bug-related troubles), while with the last one (running OS X 10.3.9, which is the maximum possible for that machine), there is apparently no support for connecting to an AirDisk.
Well, it turns out to be possible and indeed rather simple, so this hint is almost obvious when one thinks about it later. So, let's begin. I'll assume that your AirDisk is set up with accounts to access it.
- In your Mac OS X 10.3.x Panther Mac, open a Finder window and click on the Network icon in the sidebar.
- Choose your AirPort base station and connect to it by clicking on the button.
- In the dialog that appears, connect as your AirDisk account (the same as your local user account), choose to remember the password in the Keychain (in order to automate further accesses), and select all available volumes.
- The AirDisk volumes will now appear in the Finder: mine, for example, are called AirDisk (the main, shared volume) and Sven (the user account volume).
- Open System Preferences and click on the Accounts preference pane.
- Drag the AirPort Disk volumes to the Login Items (I think it's called so in English, but whatever the name is...) section of the Accounts preferences and optionally choose to hide the items.
- Log out and in again: the AirDisk volumes will now mount automatically! (And if you receive a Keychain reminder during this setup, choose to always allow the access, in order to automate the process as much as possible.)
So, even without the AirPort Disk Utility, it is indeed possibile to use an AirDisk in Mac OS X 10.3.x Panther. One could use a similar method to automount an AirDisk in Leopard, at least until the automount issue is fixed by Apple.
[robg adds: I can't confirm either the problem or the solution, having no access to a 10.3.x Mac.]
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Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20071216064648866