Comments on: HD Trouble

By: Joachim

Joachim — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:56:31 +0000

Replying to an awfully old post here, but what the hell. :-)

First of all: this issue is one I’ve seen a lot over the past few years. IIRC, I already filed some bugs about it against Ubuntu Warty’s. The problem seemed to disappear on some kernel updates, then reappear on others. Hence I always thought it was a kernel bug.

Secondly: there is a way to crack open this WD case. In fact it’s the cheapest way to extend laptop harddrives. After the holidays I’m gonna buy a 500GB WD, crack it open and put the harddrive in my MSI Wind. I guess you’ll find that interesting too. ;-)

By: RubenV

RubenV — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 20:53:47 +0000

I want to thank everybody for the abundant amount of comments. As it turns out, my hard disk was indeed underpowered (but not broken or anything, thank god!). I fixed the problem by attaching it using a Y cable, which draws the current from two USB ports. For safety, I’ve also added a powered hub in the chain. My desk looks like a mess, but it works, which means I can go back to developing photos.

Thanks all!

By: Clemens

Clemens — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:53:04 +0000

The only thing I know about those messages:

[108400.182508] hub 4-0:1.0: over-current change on port 3

is that after having them for a while (and nobody knowing why they pop up) the usb ports on my laptop’s mainboard died …

By: Seb

Seb — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:13:27 +0000

Make sure you plug the drive on the USB ports directly soldered to the mainboard.

By: blueser

blueser — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:24:06 +0000

Hi,

I have a 250GB WD Passport, and it also gave me all sorts of weird problems until it stopped being recognized at all, either by Linux (Fedora 9) or Windows. Before I threw it away, I reminded that WD says that “an optional cable is available for the few computers that limit power from the USB port.”

I decided to try this out. It was not easy to find such optional USB cable here in Brazil, so I went out and bought an external case for 2.5″ SATA drives which is powered by a separate USB cable (this is important: you’ll find tons of cases which are *not* powered by a separate cable, which will not help you at all). I transferred the drive to the other case, and now it works like a charm, never had any other problem whatsoever.

(BTW: opening the WD Passport case is a real PITA)

Further experiments showed that 160GB Passport drives (which are not manufactured anymore) were the only ones that worked flawlessly with only one cable (my brother bought one). So, shame on WD: they should provide the extra cable along with 250GB+ drives. This whole “few computers might need an extra cable” speech is pure BS.

HTH

By: njs

njs — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:44:08 +0000

I believe is a problem with the hardware itself – my father has one which he uses under Windows and the same issue occurs..

By: Toma

Toma — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:40:37 +0000

I’ve had similar problems some time ago with an IDE disk in an removable enclosure. Filesystem got silently corrupted every once in a while and no diagnostics (SMART, manufacturer’s utilities) ever reported any problems. The problem disappeared when I changed the enclosure, so it was probably because of some bad connections on the IDE connector.

If your USB enclosure contains a 2.5″ IDE disk, it may be that it slipped out of the connector. This doesn’t explain the overcurrent messages though.

By: Salvatore Iovene

Salvatore Iovene — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 07:55:52 +0000

I had the same problem with a LACIE 500 GB. I don’t think there’s a way out. If you search the Ubuntu forums, there’s an open bug about it. I eventually gave up and sold the HD. I think it happens only starting from a certain size on.
No problems with my WD Passport 120GB.

By: Tony Arnold

Tony Arnold — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 07:34:22 +0000

It sounds silly but I had similar issues with the Studio version of this HDD, and it was a dodgy cable causing all the problems. Have you tried using another USB cable yet?

By: Colin Marquardt

Colin Marquardt — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:26:49 +0000

I was having similar problems when I was connecting an external HD case with “regular” SATA (not eSATA). (Plain SATA is meant to be used internally only, but HD case manufacturers offered it nonetheless before there was eSATA.)

Since it was a data transport problem for me, it could well be the case for you even though you are using USB.