USB power problem

I’ve had my Passport for over a year now, though it’s barely moved from my desk it had real trouble powering up, only turning on when a particular USB cable was inserted (strangely enough, not the one that came with it), and then only staying power up when the cable was held at an angle, otherwise just beginning to power up before a click indicates the power has cut out. 
Now even holding the cable at an angle isn’t working, and I’m frantically trying to get some stuff off the hard drive. 

Has this happened to anyone else, and if so, do they know a quick fix? I only need to get a few files from the drive, everything else is a duplicate that I can do without, so a long term fix isn’t really essential.

Cheers.

i have the same problem  with my 320GB drive. it won’t power up on my tower but will on laptop.

You probably need a power booster cable.

http://store.westerndigital.com/store/wdus/en_US/DisplayAccesoryProductDetailsPage/ThemeID.1300400/productID.106596600/categoryID.13095900/parid.13092600/catid.13095900