I’m trying to use a My Passport Essential SE 750GByte drive on my MacBook Pro 17", Part No: [Deleted]. The problem I’m having is that it switches off randomly. It may back up 1GBytes, or 15kBytes them bang, it’s off again.
The LED goes out, and the drive disappears from my Finder window. It even switched off half way through a total erase. I’ve tried experimenting with power management on the Mac, to no avail. I’ve also tried it with my daughter’s WD My Passport Essential SE 5000GByte drive and it does the same thing. I thought it may be a faulty lead, but that was swapped too, with no effect.
I’m assuming my Mac can’t handle the power requirement of the WD drive. It’s happy driving my Seagate drive all day. I can’t find a power requirement specification on the WD website for their external USB drives. My Mac has 500mA available on the USBs.
Does anyone else have this problem? Does anyone know the power requirement of the WD drives?
i think the computer should handle it and the problem is somewhere else… There as as older power problem with Passports because of a bad cable, so what if change it? o.o
Thanks TPM, but as I noted in my post, I did swap the cable as well. My daughter’s cable & drive work fine on her Macbook Air. You’d think that if that can handle it, then surely my 17" Pro should. Still, I’d like to know the specs on the WD drive power requirement. I guess I could always measure it. I have the technology; I just need to tap into a USB extender. That would also tell me if the supply voltage is being cut off by the Mac, or if the WD drive is simply switching off by itself.
DO yourself a huge favor and wipe that thing clean! I had the same issue. I too thought it was a power issue so I looked at the spare $20 in my pocket and bought a self powered USB hub. The drive still would power off on its own. Totally unpredictable too. SO out of frustration I used the disk utility option under applications in finder, and wiped that thing clean. I removed every evidence of WD. And what do you? It works now. It’s been running over 24 hours now with no issues. And it’s running off my Macbook! Not a MB Pro either. Just make sure you erase the drive under Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
The disk utility is located in Finder/ Applications/ Utilities/ Disk Utility. Highlight the Passport. CLick the erase tab. Set on Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and Click Erase. You couldn’t Really create a clone of your OS anyways, at least you can use through time machine or simple data storage now.
Thanks sfo_mac, but I’ve tried erasing it a few times with no success.
WD sent me a double-up cable so I could power it from two USB’s on the Mac, assuming that would give me twice the current capability, but unfortunately they sent a cable that doesn’t fit their own drive! Sigh…
BTW my daughter’s Macbook Air has a rated current of 500mA on its single USB, the same as my 'Pro, and it works fine on hers, so I’m sure there’s something more subtle wrong than just the current drain. I’ll try it on the old Hp desktop; it might be more useful on that. It’s currently just a paperweight!
Cheers, S/C
