USB portable drive weirdness

[Tyler Aviss]

I had similar problems between a friend's laptop and my own. Mine is a
*huge* HP with lots of power for USB, hers was a little Samsung that
didn't quite make it power-wise. The drive would detect and work fine
on my laptop, but on hers it was sometimes hit-and-miss or it would
detect, then lose power, then come up again, etc...

Her drive had a plug for using a 5V external power adaptor, does yours
have something like this, Peter?

On 8/8/07, Colin McGregor <colinmc151-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> --- Peter King <peter.king-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > I put a 2.5" drive in a portable enclosure, for
> > backing up and transferring
> > files, which connects to and draws power from a USB
> > 2.0 cable. It works just
> > fine on my laptop. Well, I plugged it into my
> > desktop yesterday, and -- well,
> > nothing. I mean nothing at all: no sign in dmesg
> > that it even registered. It
> > just wasn't there.
> >
> > OK, I thought, somewhere along the line I probably
> > haven't loaded the right
> > USB modules, or USB_mass_storage, or whatever. Then
> > I plugged in my USB flash
> > drive. Came right up, recognized by dmesg, mounted
> > just fine as a USB weapon
> > of mass storage. So the USB subsystem seems to be
> > working.
> >
> > Tried the portable drive once more. Again, nothing.
> > The drive light comes on
> > so it *is* drawing power -- but no registration in
> > dmesg. So I plugged it in
> > my laptop, and there it is, no problem. Back on the
> > desktop, nada.
> >
> > What is going on here? Any ideas?
>
> Max power draw on one USB port is 500 mA. Some 2.5"
> drives with case can top that. My 2.5" drive case came
> with a funny looking USB Y cable allowing it to plug
> into 2 USB ports (i,e, it can draw 2 x 500 mA). My
> first guess in all this is your in a marginal power
> situation, the laptop can offer enough power, but the
> desktop comes up slightly short...
>
> Colin.
>
> > --
> > Peter King                            peter.king-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org
> > Department of Philosophy
> > 215 Huron Street
> > The University of Toronto                 (416)-978-4951 ofc
> > Toronto, ON  M5S 1A2
> >        CANADA
> >
> > http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/
> >
> >
> =========================================================================
> > GPG keyID 0x7587EC42 (2B14 A355 46BC 2A16 D0BC  36F5
> > 1FE6 D32A 7587 EC42)
> > gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 7587EC42
> >
>
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