My Passport 1TB not being recognized on USB 2.0

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

Hi everyone,

My external 1TB passport used to work fine till last week or so on my desktop and old laptop. But all of a sudden, now it just works with the new laptop that has USB 3.0 ports. Desktop or the old laptop (USB 2.0) don’t even recognize the drive in the BIOS! Tried it on another laptop with USB 2.0 but it won’t work. I am using the default cable that came along with the drive.

I know it could be related to the power supply being less, but how does one explain the sudden refusal to work on USB 2.0? Is it time to change the drive?

Thank you!

2

Have you tried replacing the USB 3.0 cable with a Micro USB 2.0 cable to force legacy mode? The interface connector may look proprietary, but Micro USB 2.0 cables fit within the “flat” half of the connector, leaving the “square” section empty and forcing USB 2.0 mode for backwards compatibility.