USB2 external drive operating in USB1 mode

chrisgeary

chrisgeary

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I've got a WD 320gb external USB2 drive and its refusing to operate at full speed. Windows reports it as being able to perform faster blah blah and the mac just accepts it as is. In both cases with two different cables, it refuses to pass data any faster than 10mbps or so.

Anyone run into this before?

thx
Chris
 
I get this sometimes, the pc is usb2 and the drive is too. I start the drive disconnected then plug in and it usually works, I think it is crappy vista causing my problems as it pops up a message stating it can go faster and lists the usb sockets it is already plugged into :shrug:
 
are you connecting to a usb post which id a direct connection to the mobo (usually the rear) as sometimes front and side usb ports are only usb1
 
Mine is on a laptop which all the ports are usb 2 :shrug: My method seems to work for me.
 
If it is new send it back?

Or does it work at normal speed on another computer?

Only other thought is AV or firewall too zealous and treating it as suspicious / scanning everything.
 
If you are running XP then it is quite possible that it is a driver issue. XP has USB1 drivers built in and it runs all the USB ports as USB1. When you install the USB2 drivers and reboot you get USB2 speed. This is the error message you would get in that situation. Try checking which motherboard you have and making sure you download the motherboard drivers.
 
huh.. you were right. the front ports on my pc aren't usb2.

so mystery one solved and full speed has been resumed.
however, the macbook ports should be usb2 right? its a 2ghz core2duo, so reasonably recent. any special drivers required?
 
chrisgeary said:
huh.. you were right. the front ports on my pc aren't usb2.

so mystery one solved and full speed has been resumed.
however, the macbook ports should be usb2 right? its a 2ghz core2duo, so reasonably recent. any special drivers required?
Click to expand...

No under macos USB2 drivers are built in.
 
Theres no reason they shouldn't be Chris, except when people went from XP SP1 to SP2 microsoft made a maes of the USB 2 Drivers, normal windows updates should have sorted it out but in all likely hood anyone who has upgraded from XP SP1 to any other version of windows right up to 7 "could" have the same problem.

Simple solution is to uninstall all USB host controllers and all usb root hubs from device manager and reboot, you might need to do it a couple of times as when you delete the driver for your USB mouse port you wont be able to delete any more because you have lost your mouse.

Reboot, and as long as youre using XPSP2 or above windows will rebuild the drivers for you automatically, this also applies if you have printers or external drives attached via usb.
 
well you know what. the drive is refusing to operate in usb2 mode on the rear ports now. there must be something wrong with the enclosure. it won't play at full speed with either the mac or windows. it can't be drivers. whats even more annoying is its a stupid pata drive that i cannot put in my PC because it has no pata ports. grrr rant fume bah. 6 hours to wait then....
 
problem solved. there is a metal shield over the usb/pata interface inside the unit. i removed it and it didn't look like it had a good contact (thus not gounding effectively) to the pcb. I scraped the contacts on the pcb and the shield itself, rescrewed it together tightly and verified with windows that it is usb2 speed on the rear ports. the front ports are still usb1. connected to the mac and full speed has been achieved. ahhhhh
 
I bought one of these a while back.

Just plug it into the bare drive. Gives easy access to those old drives that are laying around (sata and IDE 3.5" and 2.5") and a fast easy way to connect a dvd drive to my netbook.
 
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