Hacking External Hard drive choices, Externally powered vs Y Cable.

[Mrgreen1290]

I had a wiiU for close to 2 years and I have powered my external drive off a Y cable. Last week my WiiU started freezing on launch. I looked up this problem and found it has been happening frequently to WiiUs. When I contacted support they said that they recommend using an externally powered hard drive and couldn't say using a Y cable was a safe way to use an external hard drive.

I have my old External hard drive and the Y Cable but I looked on amazon and everything on there seems to be 70-100 Dollars or more for an externally powered hard drive.

Anyone have any ideas on if the Y cable is what caused this problem? Maybe some fault with the system because it was 3 years old? Any recommendation or advice. Sadly money does not grow on trees for me

 

[Mrgreen1290]

Is this a good idea?

I would use it. Use a Y-cable definitely or it probably won't even spin up. Personally I use a USB wall charger and plug the second usb cable into it to provide the power. This is mostly because I have a usb LAN adapter and the Gamecube adapter for Smash plugged in as well.

 

[OriginalHamster]

Y cable is not the source of your problem, maybe your HDD is on sleep mode?
Check this https://gbatemp.net/threads/people-with-westerndigital-hdd-sleep-problem.318273/