Portable hard drive connects and disconnects on its own

As stated above, when I connect my hard drive to my mac if it appears at all it will almost definitely disconnect itself within a minute or two and when it does show up there is nothing in the folder when I select it (i.e. no set up files which I know should be there). This is a hard drive that I have recently recieved back from WD in warranty. 

Hello,

It sounds like a power issue to me…

what’s the OS for the computer that you are using? is that a laptop or desktop? if is a desktop make sure to connect the unit to the back USB ports of the computer… that should help you.

Hi, unfortunately my Mac (laptop) is running on a relatively old OS, 10.5 I think though I also tried it in my friends Mac which is running on the current OSX.

Not sure about Mac OS, but under windows this is usually caused by power management settings (especially with laptop energy profiles). The computer will disable USB ports to conserve power. Through Device Manager, you can revoke Windows permission to turn off components such as USB ports through the item’s properties. I would assume the Mac OS would have something similar.  

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Thanks! I’ll look into the Mac equivalent for this, hopefully it helps.

Hi - I’m having the same problem on a MacBook 10.6.8 after installing the new firmware update. Did you figure out how to fix it? 

Thanks!

I’m experiencing a similar problem with a Windows 7 notebook computer. When attempting to copy files from MyPassport to the hard drive of the notebook, I receive Error 0x80070037: “The specified network resource or device is no longer available”. Simultaneously, a Passport autoplay window pops up with various choices, including “Open folder to view files”.

This appears not to be a problem with USB power being restricted. I changed the power setting options in Control Panel to prevent that from happening and that is reflect in the Device Manager settings. Also, MyPassport is clearly powered when this occurs; The LED is lit and I can hear the drive spinning.

The drive works just fine when connected to my desktop machine.

Any and all suggestions to resolve this problem will be greatly appreciated.

DiskDriver999

Hi Morgangenevieve

I too have the same problem with my passport.  It ejects and mounts automatically on my mac laptop.

Did you get any resolution on  this?

Thanks

I have the same issue, I couldn’t find anything on mac that allows you to change the USB power settings, yet that is what you marked as solving your problem. Could you explain how you did this?

If you are experiencing issues, and they are power related, you may need to pickup a power booster cable in order to fully spin up the drives.  You can contact support, or the WDStore, to purchase them.

Greg_R can you show the image step to change the USB power settings…

Hello everyone! :wink:

this is my first post, i’m from brazil!!!

I have the same problem mentioned here with My Passport Essential SE 750gb.

the firmware is up to date…

but i think, this is a hardware problem…
WHY??? Because i have tested the same external drive in my Macbook pro (late 2011) and in my Imac 27" (late 2011)… and both have exactly the same problem… many time to recognize in finder (and Disk Utility) When finaly it appears and i copy a larger file from my internal drive to external drive, the speed is too slow, and after 1-2 min the drive disconnect automatically…

I have others external drivers, Samsung M2, M3 and a Toshiba… all 3 works perfectly…

But, i have tested the drive in WIndows 7 (my gf laptop - when it have connected in windows, a pop-up window appears to fix a MBR…)… after i have fixed the MBR, it works, but nor perfectly… Windows recognize faster, but the speed for any action is slow again…

what happens??? the drive is killed???

tks 4 all!

Two things to consider:

  1. As I stated above, I would get a power booster cable to make sure that you are getting enough power to the drive.
  2. Also, make sure you are not using a cable that’s longer than 18 inches.  Otherwise, line resistance can hinder the amount of power getting to your drive.

Hi

I have the same problem but dont I dont think that it is solved by purchasing power bosster cable because it works fine on my even older laptop.

Wy by a USB-powered hard drive if you have by an addition power-cable.

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Senmann wrote:

Hi

 

I have the same problem but dont I dont think that it is solved by purchasing power bosster cable because it works fine on my even older laptop.

 

Wy by a USB-powered hard drive if you have by an addition power-cable.

You’re actually proving my point.  If the drive works fine on one laptop and not on another, that’s usually an indication that you need a power booster cable.  Not all computers and laptops put out the same amount of power on USB ports.

A power booster cable is not a power adapter. It’s a y-cable that allows you to connect to two usb ports.  That gives the portable drive more power to function.  Contact our support team to see if they can help you with this.

Below is the contact information for WD’s Support. You can contact them either by phone or email.

To Contact WD for Technical Support
http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en

I have the exact same problem with my WD My Passport 1Tb (WDBBEP0010BBK-03). Keeps randomly disconnecting after the PC has been running a few hours. The passport is a USB powered device, so what kind of ‘power booster’ are you talking about? Does not the WD product follow USB power managment rules? Is the WD drive not interoperable with USB? I’ve tried connect connecting to both the internal computer USB ports, as well as on USB hubs. Its the same not matter what. The drive is powered & spinning fine. It does not look like a power issue. The drive just seems to go to sleep on its own & never returns without unplugging & re-plugging the drive into the USB2.0 port.

Mine never re-connects. I have to unplug & re-plug in the drive to get it to wake up. I’ve only had it about 6 months, and its been doing this constantly & randomly for the last 2-3 monhts. I’m running Win7/64bit Ultimate. I went thru their entire knowledge base, and the only thing closest is a report of USB3.0 drive disconnecting & reconnecting due to USB power management issues. But mine is USB2.0 & I have power management turned off & the drive set to never sleep. Also, there are 100’s of people having this problem with WD My Passport external drives. There are a ton of posts on Microsoft, tech bulletin Boards, chat rooms, and blogs. Even on Apple/Mac support sites tons of people are reporting this problem. Even here on WD community message boards there are at least 25-50 reports of this exact same problem. What is WD doing about this? What is the resolution? These drives are used for backups & data storage. This issue is putting both business users & home users at significant risk. What is the point of getting a drive from WD, when it cannot stay only online long enough for backups or data storage file transfers to even work. I’ve looked at 100’s of complaints about this, and no one seems to be getting answers, support, or resolution. The Tech/IT community is talking about never using WD drives again & are informing their customers & users to do the same. The word is getting out that these My Passport drives are no good & are constant problems. What is WD doing about this? My issue has been going on for months & I’ve wasted 100’s of hours researching and dealing with this problem!

Why do customers need to buy a special cable that connects to 2 USB ports? Does not the WD product work as intended when connected to a USB port? Was the WD product not designed to operate on standard USB power? If not, this should be noted in the product documentation and the special cable should be supplied with the product.

Plus, I think this is bogus, because I have another WD My Passport hooked up to the same computer using the same USB ports, and it is not having a problem at all. I bought this one several months before the one that is failing. They are nearly identical products. One is 750Gb (works fine) and the second is 1Tb (is failing). If it were a power problem, wouldn’t the 750Gb drive be having the same problem?

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Kdude wrote:

Why do customers need to buy a special cable that connects to 2 USB ports? Does not the WD product work as intended when connected to a USB port? Was the WD product not designed to operate on standard USB power? If not, this should be noted in the product documentation and the special cable should be supplied with the product.

 

Plus, I think this is bogus, because I have another WD My Passport hooked up to the same computer using the same USB ports, and it is not having a problem at all. I bought this one several months before the one that is failing. They are nearly identical products. One is 750Gb (works fine) and the second is 1Tb (is failing). If it were a power problem, wouldn’t the 750Gb drive be having the same problem?

I don’t know if there would be the same problem. It might depend on how much data is on the drive.  Someone should be in touch with you soon.  They should be able to help you trouble shoot it better. Let us know how it turns out. 

I have a similar problem with a ASUS Windows 7 notebook with one usb 3 and 3 usb 2’s.  Copying large files to 1 terabyte “My Passport” follows with “The specified network resource or device is no longer available”.  However, the same drive works fine in the other usb 2 ports.  I have additional 2 terabytes drives that work fine in the usb 3 port.  The same drive (1 terabyte) isn’t recognized in my older pc connected to a usb extension cable.  It creates an error of drive needs to be formatted.  Is the drive becoming defective?

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