External Hard Drive wont work with USB 3.0 but works with 2.0

alexh9 · 26 Dec 2016

I'm unable to connect my WD USB 3.0 external drive (with a USB 3.0 cable) to my USB 3.0 slots on my computer. All my drivers seem up to date. The drive works connected to the USB 2.0 slot on my system.

I tried a different WD USB 3.0 external drive to my computer to see if it was my computer or the drive itself, and this other WD drive worked fine. I even tried the cable from the other drive to rule out of it's a faulty cable, and the cable is fine.

So what I've gathered is that the drive won't connect to the USB 3.0 slot for some reason. I'm thinking it's either that there is something wrong with the external drive itself, or there is some sort of setting which is interfering with the connectivity. Although I'm guessing it's the former, since the other external drive connected just fine?

Any ideas?

ICIT2LOL · 26 Dec 2016

Hello and welcome Alex now did the machine tell you it was installing the drive software when you first plugged it in - there is usually a pop up that says "installing the drive software" or something similar to that.

The other thing is are you sure the drive is 3.0 compatible? Another thing to try if you can is plug that drive into a another machine's 3.0 port and see if it does the same thing or works.

Now to be honest using it with a 2.0 port is really not going to make much difference because to me at least the 3.0 being quoted at ten times faster than 2.0 is being rather fanciful and it is more likely to be only a small % faster. I often either of the ports on my machines and I again have to be honest and say that it is hard to pick which is the quickest.

For example on my Ivy Bridge build I regularly image the drive for backup using Macrium Reflect and the difference between the image time on 2.0 and then 3.0 would only be that the 3.0 maybe does the image in around a minute to a minute and half in time less to do the image and that is a conservative figure.

An article on it USB - Wikipedia < this shows the newer 3.1 USB which I cannot comment on. The same goes for SATA speeds and that also tends to be a selling point for those manufacturers of motherboards and I think it maybe better now but in the past the true speed of the ports was a fair bit lower than what was stated. I stand to be corrected on this though - of course.

Megahertz07 · 27 Dec 2016

Open Device Manager to see if there is no yellow alert.
Plug in the drive and see if the driver is loaded on Device Manager.

As Icit2lol mentioned, USB3 and USB2 wont make any difference. The bottle neck isn't the USB communication speed. The bottle neck is the device.
I have a USB3 external HDD and I've test it on a USB2.0 and USB3. There is no difference.

Eric3742 · 27 Dec 2016

Hi

Most probably error is the USB 3 components in the WD HDD is either damaged or mis-align.

For example on the old PATA HDD with the 40+ pin.
Should 1 pin is out &or bend out and that PATA HDD will not be detected.

Save you data and send to the service to check and to repair if necessary.
If you bought new and still under warranty, then transfer all the files folders program to another HDD.

Send to the service center to repair.
The service center will be able to test on the spot with their special tools.
Then they can confirm whether to replace or repair.

They may even repair it on the spot.
You can ask them what really happen, if they do inform you, then let us know!

These type of issue is quite rare, but it may also can be happened.

The very 1st time that i bought a SSD, it cannot work.
So sent to get a 1 to 1 replacement.

Eric.