WDTV won't recognize my 2.5 (40gb hard drive)

Dear Sir,

Kindly advise.  When i plug my 2.5 (40gb external Hard Drive),  my WDTV unit doesn’t recognize the HD.  i have plans to buy a new 2.5 HD but i’m afraid it won’t work with my wdtv media player.  I got the 40 Gb HD from my old laptop and just put it into an external hard disk enclosure.  

Would appreciate your advise.

Thanks,

joel

Have you tried other external drives on the WD TV?  If so, and they work, then there’s something up with the 40 gig you’re trying to use.  Change cables, and make sure it’s formatted correctly.

it is entirely possible that the case that you put your laptop drive in may require additional power. Some have a special USB cable that takes power from 2 USB ports. Others require the addition of an external power supply. You may have one of those two issues going on. I haven’t tried my laptop drive that I put into an external case on my WD TV yet, nor do I intend to.

For that laptop drive in a case, I need to use both power ends for use with my desktop computer off a powered USB hub, but on my MacBook Pro, I only need 1 USB port for it to run. I’ve never needed a power supply with it.