Hello. I recently purchased a My Book Essentials 2TB external drive, and I’m having a problem getting it to work in USB 3 mode. My computer has three USB 3 ports, one of which is powered. If I plug the drive into either of the non-powered USB 3 ports, Windows brings up a message along the lines of “this device would perform faster if connected to a super-speed USB 3 port” which is curious considering I have done so. So, the drive only works as USB 2 in these ports. However if I connect it to the powered port, this message does not appear, and the drive presumably functions properly as a USB 3 device. Now, I’m aware that portable drives might require this in order to function at USB 3 speeds but since this drive has an external power supply, I don’t understand why it won’t work in USB 3 mode on the non-powered USB 3 ports. I have checked my BIOS, it is up to date, and installed USB 3 drivers from the manufacturer’s website. I also went into the BIOS at startup to “enable” USB 3 (read this online) incase it was only enabled for some ports, but the BIOS settings make no reference to USB 3 at all. The fact that the drive works as USB 3 device in the powered port tells me that the drivers/software works because they wouldn’t arbitrarily work for some ports and not others. But for some reason the drive will not to function as USB 3 in a non-powered port. I’d like to rectify this as I would prefer to plug it into a non-powered port. So, I’m out of ideas. What could I do to get it to work as USB 3 in the non-powered USB 3 ports? Thanks.
Also try updating the my book firmware in case if you haven’t already done so.
