Yeah, I bought one of these drives from Best Buy a few months ago and it had so many problems mounting. I loved the small form factor, but you'll see how much the shell scratches and that it's not very reliable. Now when i plug it in I can only copy 10 - 20 megs before it unmounts on it's own giving me an error message. I lost alot of data. Now i have a 500 gig seagate with leopards time machine running. Hopefully I don't go through the same thing again.
Were you using this with a laptop? Because I've heard that they're fairly unreliable with laptops because they can't pull enough power from the usb or something . . .
did you use the short and thick USB cable they provided you or did you use some generic USB cord? I first had the same problem when I used a longer usb cord that i had previously had. After using the original cord provided it didn't happen anymore.
I kind of thought the whole point of buying a passport drive would be to use it with a laptop cause its so portable. If size isn't a concern you can buy plenty of higher capacity drives for less $.
I know it's not an ideal solution, but you can use one of these cables: http://www.lindy.co.uk/31780.html Just plug the second usb plug into another usb port, or a usb charger adaptor. However, I agree that manufactures should warn people that 2.5" drives are not certain to be able to draw enough power from a single usb port on all computers before selling them as usb powered.
I have one of these and it mounted fine for a while then stopped. I couldn't figure out why. Turns out it was upside down. Yep. That's right. Upside down.
Of course, it's a perfectly symmetrical black box, so I'm not entirely surprised I'd put it down upside down...but I AM surprised it wouldn't work that way...
I was on tech support when I noticed it...and the guy actually said, "Yes, if it's upside down it won't mount."
Those of you who use the Western Digital Passport drive really need to plug it into a USB HUB which has ITS OWN power supply... Some USB ports on laptops don't have enough power to run the passport drive... you need a HUB with its own power source... Mine works GREAT, but I have it plugged into a Belkin 4 port USB hub...
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Yeah, I bought one of these drives from Best Buy a few months ago and it had so many problems mounting. I loved the small form factor, but you'll see how much the shell scratches and that it's not very reliable. Now when i plug it in I can only copy 10 - 20 megs before it unmounts on it's own giving me an error message. I lost alot of data. Now i have a 500 gig seagate with leopards time machine running. Hopefully I don't go through the same thing again.
Got a 160 gig for a customer awhile ago and she hasn't complained. You should have sent yours back
Were you using this with a laptop? Because I've heard that they're fairly unreliable with laptops because they can't pull enough power from the usb or something . . .
Exactly. I won't get an external HD that doesn't plug into the wall (or, in my case, my UPS).
did you use the short and thick USB cable they provided you or did you use some generic USB cord? I first had the same problem when I used a longer usb cord that i had previously had. After using the original cord provided it didn't happen anymore.
Runs great on most desktop and macbook (fast abt 7gb in 7mins), however problems when connected to my dell laptop...not enough power
@ rlh82
I kind of thought the whole point of buying a passport drive would be to use it with a laptop cause its so portable. If size isn't a concern you can buy plenty of higher capacity drives for less $.
I know it's not an ideal solution, but you can use one of these cables: http://www.lindy.co.uk/31780.html
Just plug the second usb plug into another usb port, or a usb charger adaptor.
However, I agree that manufactures should warn people that 2.5" drives are not certain to be able to draw enough power from a single usb port on all computers before selling them as usb powered.
I have one of these and it mounted fine for a while then stopped. I couldn't figure out why. Turns out it was upside down. Yep. That's right. Upside down.
Of course, it's a perfectly symmetrical black box, so I'm not entirely surprised I'd put it down upside down...but I AM surprised it wouldn't work that way...
I was on tech support when I noticed it...and the guy actually said, "Yes, if it's upside down it won't mount."
So there you have it.
Those of you who use the Western Digital Passport drive really need to plug it into a USB HUB which has ITS OWN power supply... Some USB ports on laptops don't have enough power to run the passport drive... you need a HUB with its own power source... Mine works GREAT, but I have it plugged into a Belkin 4 port USB hub...
~~ George