I have a problem with my WD My Passport 1Tb (WDBBEP0010BBK-03). Keeps randomly disconnecting after the PC has been running a few hours. But 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!
There have been suggestions on here to buy a ‘power booster’ cable. 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 that 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 WDBBEP7500ABK-01 (works fine) and the second is 1Tb WDBBEP0010BBK-03 (is failing).
If it were a power problem, wouldn’t the 750Gb drive be having the same problem?
My PC is Win7 64bit Ultimate, nVidia 680i SLI mobo, 8Gb Ram, Quad Core Q6700 Intel processor 2.66Ghz (intell 775 socket). USB2.0 ports.
Btw, I have already swapped cables out. The cable has nothing to do with it.
I’ve just spent about 4 hours reading 100’s of post in this community dating back to 2010. 100’s of customers have reported this problem, and the threads all end the same. No resolution or a ridiculous work around. Only customer with Fresco chipsets seem to have some temporary relief.
IT APPEARS, WD HAS GONE 4 YEARS WITHOUT RESOLVING THIS ISSUE, WHICH MAKES THESE DRIVES USELESS, AND IS STILL KNOWINGLY SELLING THESE DRIVES OR THERE DERIVATIVES TO UNSUSPECTING CUSTOMERS…!
SIMPLY UNBELIEVABLE & UNACCEPTABLE, NOT TO MENTION UNETHICAL…!
WD IS KNOWINGLY SELLING FAULTY PRODUCT TO THE MARKET…!
I think its time to get consumer advocate agencies and government enforcement bodies involved to deal with this criminal activity. WD should be ashamed of themselves. Anyone related to this product program should be fired.
I am a technical user and IT person. I will be advising all my clients, partners, users, and peers to boycott WD and NEVER EVER buy WD products…!
Hi Kdude, sorry to hear you have been experiencing problems. It would be difficult to know exactly what is causing the problem without doing some troubleshooting, but please note that there are several situations that can cause an external hard drive to disconnect. A common cause is when the hard drive does not get enough energy to work correctly, not all USB ports provide the same energy level, the minimum recommended for WD USB powered drives is 500 mA. Another common cause for disconnection problems is data corruption, when data becomes corrupt it can cause communication problems with the the PC, causing the hard drive to be ejected. I suggest running a test using our DLG diagnostics tool to rule out any possible hardware damage, be sure to use the cable that came bundled with the Passport, since longer cables or USB hubs can cause power inconsistencies. Check the link below for the steps.
How to test a drive for problems using Data Lifeguard Diagnostics for Windows
How to physically connect, disconnect, and install a WD external drive in a Windows PC or Mac
Im having the exact same problems as mentioned in this thread >>> http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-Portable-Drives/My-Passport-2TB-always-connects-disconnects-and-horrible-speed/td-p/692012
Did everything, WD diagnostics came out clean, low level format (found 0 bad sectors) it’s just a problem with the drive itself after the latest firmware update. Original firmware never had these issues! and wha’ts worse, WD won’t offer us a downgrade which is a simple fix!! WOW!
last WD driver I buy in my life!
