usb hard drive

[Guest]

My cord for my little ION iogear 60gb usb drive is a little to short so i
hooked up an usb extention and when i hook the hard drive to it the computer
does nothing its like i never hooked it up. But on the hard drive the little
power light comes on so i know that it is getting power. The usb hard drive
is powered through the usb slot on the computer. So normally a person would
think it is a bad usb extention cord, but if i hook a little thumb drive to
the usb extention cord it works. Whats going on? Is it possible that the
extention cord can only supply so much power and that the 60 gb drive
requires to much to run it.

 

[JS]

Could be the total length exceeds the USB specifications. With both cables
connected how long is the length?

JS

 

[Guest]

Its probably 5 or 6 feet total of cable length. But if it did exceed the
length why would the little thumb drive work?

 

[JS]

5 or 6 Feet should not be an issue, so that's not the issue.
Have you tried another USB port on your PC?

JS

 

[RobertVA]

My cord for my little ION iogear 60gb usb drive is a little to short so i
hooked up an usb extention and when i hook the hard drive to it the computer
does nothing its like i never hooked it up. But on the hard drive the little
power light comes on so i know that it is getting power. The usb hard drive
is powered through the usb slot on the computer. So normally a person would
think it is a bad usb extention cord, but if i hook a little thumb drive to
the usb extention cord it works. Whats going on? Is it possible that the
extention cord can only supply so much power and that the 60 gb drive
requires to much to run it.

Try it on a POWERED USB 2 hub. If it works there, the port on the
computer is probably having trouble supplying enough power. I would
imagine that when combined with the interface circuitry the motor and
coil (that changes cylinders) in an external hard drive would draw
significantly more power than the circuitry in a flash drive.

 

[Guest]

but it does work on the usb port its just it does not work with the usb
extention cord

 

[Justin Brown - SYNACS]

The limit for a single USB port is 500mA draw, which is right about
where a 2.5" USB HDD is at (it's even more for 5400RPM and 7200RPM
spindle speeds). You lose a certain amount of power (however finite) to
resistance, interference, and other factors with every M-F interface
and every foot of USB cable.

I would suggest doing what RobertVA advised. Buy or borrow a hub that
has a power cable and see if it powers the drive through your extension
cord.

Many USB hard drives enclosures are supplied with dual USB cords for
this purpose, to split the power load across multiple USB ports. You
might even find that swapping enclosures with one that splits the power
is your best option.