Faulty usb cable

If your problem is the USB cable not maintaining a good connection, you can contact WD via their website and request an updated USB cable.  I have personally done this, as has countless others who own these drives.  In my case, WD shipped me a newer cable in two days absolutely free of charge.  The updated cable will work properly for you, as its connector is built better and snaps into the drive’s USB port with authority.  Be sure to include the exact make/model of your drive.  Good luck and take care…

regards

Steve

1 Like

uh guys i bought a new WD My passport 750 GB drive (yea with the micro usb thingy) Essentials SE, usb 2.0

I have 3 partitions on there, the My Passport Partition formatted to Mac OSX HFS+ Journaled, NTFS, formatted to FAT16or32 can’t remember (the partition is for containing MacDrive 8 with the keygen so that my pc computers could read the My Passport partition) and Time Machine (for obvious reasons lol :wink: ) When it came in the mail i kinda flipped out at the micro usb thing, but then relaxed cuz it is awesome! I tlly understand y they chose it! it has these little hooks that hold it in, like today it kinda fell off my bed(I have a bunker and im on top, desk on bottom) and if not for the beastly micro cable’s hooks, i’d have a DOA drive rite now! ily WD (no **bleep** intended) lol. The only cons i have about it is that I only have 1, the one WD gives you is very short ( I can understand that cuz they think that you are probably going to use it with a netbook which i am using it with but i also use it with my desktops. Lastly, and I only found out about it rite now, If you plug it in to your computer sideways, it shorts it out and the computer shuts down/reboots.

Sincerely David

P.S. I have no macs, I hackintoshed all of my PC’s

Netbook - Asus eee pc 1000he blue edition

Desktops - Custom pc 1( amd operatron 132, on asus a8n-sli premium, in antec sonata 2 case(can sell pm me or reply)

[deleted for advertising]

I bought a 320gb my passport 6 months ago… I never expected that something so small as a cable would make me so disappointed in paying my money to WD. I can’t discribe the frustration i’ve been in after trying multiple times to transfer large files and the drive disconnects from the computer because of the loose cable. Even if I hit my hand on the other side of the table, the hard drive disconnects. This isn’t practical at all!!! I can’t believe they made such a nice hard drive and messed up with the cable… I tried the micro-usb cable from my LG phone and works perfect now… Very very disappointed. Next time I think i’ll try some other company. Thanks…

I am yet _ ANOTHER _ user with this problem! I received this drive yesterday (Nov 8 2010) and have this exact problem. There are complaints in this forum about this problem from a year ago! … At what point does Western Digital say “Hey, we have to send out “the better cable” after every second person buys one of these drives, why don’t we just update the cable in the original package” … I don’t get it …

I have the 1tb Passport Essential SE USB 3.0 … a different cable than most people, but with the same problem … The drive just randomly disconnects and reconnects every 30 to 60 minutes. I have done the “usual suspects” like

  1. Reboot

  2. Try a different port

  3. Try a different computer

  4. Upgrade all firmware and software …

Nothing works! I WISH I would have seen this complaint thread before I bought the drive. I am sure I’d be sitting here with a Seagate as we speak. But like I stated earlier, with SO MANY problems of the same type, you’d think WD would have remedied this problem by now. I have been a WD customer for 15 years with basically no complaints, but this might end it all. Every half hour hearing the Windows 7 “Bee Boop … Booo Beep” USB connect, disconnect sound! Especially if it is in the middle of a file transfer! Very frustrating to say the least.

Are you sure this isn’t some PC power condition? Go into Device Manager in USB right click on the hubs properties then power management and uncheck allow computer to turn off. Then go into advanced power options and find selective suspend and disable it and see if that helps.

Joe

Thanks for the tip Joe_S …

That is one of the many things that I tried … I usually uncheck “allow computer to turn this device off to save power” for all USB hubs and Network Adapters …

I have to say, I am not sure if that was the problem or not, it certainly could be (as I tried more than one “repair attempt” at once as I became impatient) … However, the problem has subsided and it has only disconnected once in the last 24 hours …

The good people at WD have already shipped a replacement USB 3.0 to Micro B cable just in case …

Thanks again …

I bought this drive a year ago. Since then, I contacted wd-support three times for a new cable. each time they sent me a new one and each time the cable failt some weeks later. [deleted]!

In all honesty a cable is just a piece of hardware if you constantly plug and unplug it probably is going to wear quickly. I also suspect WD may have a vendor problem since these show up in batches then fade way for a while. I had a external DVD drive the USB port in it went bad hooked up to the desktop! The cable was probably unpluged 3 or 4 times at the most.

I’m having this problem as well…I been living with it for about a year when I brought my 750GB drive last year. I usual keep my laptop & drive on my lap when I’m on the computer…so if I’m copying like 7GBs of data or video…I have to sit still for so freaking long. Not making a move maybe except to move my hands…even if I do I have to move them carefully like I have a timebomb around me.

I don’t know who made this kind of cable or why? But this is just bad…why make the cable smaller…for “style”?

I thought there was something just wrong with my cable…and everyone else’s was fine…But I see I’m not alone.

WD know they messed up on this kind of cable…I smell a recall…

Have you contacted WD about the cable? Others have gotten replacements.

i just purchased the 1TB and it wont read on any of my other entertainemnt devices, etc PS3 and DVD player. any ideas??? works fine on the PC.

It’s probably the format. It came formatted NTFS for windows and PS3 needs FAT32 which has a max file size of 4 gig.

Or perhaps the VCD partition ?

If your drive has a VCD partition than this is the 1st partition and probably your other entertainment devices

cannot “read” past it.

A well known problem. Please read the topic “Remove the VCD from my drive” and similar previous topics.

I have three of the newer essentials drives and the ***ONLY*** way the work reliably is with the bulky desk dock, from the Elite package.  It holds the drive perfectly still on the dock, but isn’t very portable.  The replacement cables only last for a few days.  Really ■■■■ poor design and band aid support. 

I also have a newer Elements portabe drive, with a mini usb, not micro usb.  Same as my older passport drives and it works just fine. 

I have several newer devices and none of the micro USB connectors work well at all. I think it is just a bad design.  The size difference between mini usb and micro usb is minimal.  In every device, mini usb could have been used with no problem.  I really don’t see why they are changing.  I have Mini USB drived I use constantly that are 4 years old and they do not have any problems at all.  I would switch back to seagate, but they have gone to a propietary connector on the drives and I won’t do that.

I wrote to the VP in charge of these drives and never received a responce.  I have to say I’m done with WD.

I was surprised to see that so many people are having the problem with the usb cable; not only me. The drive, I should say is very fast and reliable but on the otherhand the usb cable that WD has provided is sub-standard, unreliable and prone to breakage.

The cable is sensitive to the slightest bit of movement and makes my life **bleep**. The drive loses its connection in between and all the work gets screwed up. Because of the cable, I have no option but to replace the entire drive.

Contact customer service they’ll probably send you a new one.

Joe

I don’t know where my problem comes from, i am a newbie in HD from WD, but here’s the deal.

I bought a few weeks back a HD mybook 3.0, now it was working fine untill a few days back, it doesn’t work properly anymore. I use this HD for my WII. when i plug in the HD on the electric supply it’s working fine, coz i hear it running, but from the moment i plug the USB cable in it goes automaticlly out.

Can anyone tell me what can be the problem, I hav contacted WD already, they say to run some checking software but i’m not a big fan of doing this coz i don’t wanna loose any data.

Hope u all understand my problem little bit, coz my english not 100% :womanwink:

I have tried other external hard hard drives (not WDC) and also find that the USB 2.0 micro B cable can fail easily with the constant disconnect / reconnect.  However, it needs to be noted that the USB 3.0 micro B cable is not the same as the USB 2.0 version.  The SuperSpeed “option” of the USB 3.0 requires additional “connections” and the drive connector is different:

USB 3.0 micro-B

You would think with this many replies, they would take action to fix their cables.  My cable failed also.  I ordered a new one only to discover they sent the wrong one (not mini B)  Makes me wonder if this is a newly designed cable that does not fit older models.  aaaaaggggghhhhhhhhhhhh

The cables are diferent.  There are at least three different connector styles:

USB 2.0 Mini B

USB 2.0 Micro B

USB 3.0 Micro B