Hardware External hard drive problem

Draexelion

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Hey guys!
I got a wiiu about a week ago and I bought a WD external hard drive, which is self powered, and I bought a y cable and all was good. The Wii u formatted the drive directly and I installed a couple of games and all was well and dandy. After about 2 days, I turned on my Wii u and it started recognizing the drive and after about 10 seconds the drive failed to be recognized. Then I realised that the external hard drive was blinking. I tried messing with the y cable and plugging and unplugging it and after about an hour, the Wii u recognized the drive but after about 10 minutes of playing it gives the error that the drive was disconnected and that I should shut off my console and check if the hard drive is getting enough power. This has been going on for 2 days now. Please someone help me!! Also, I'm going to upload some photos of my setup.
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Sometimes the drives have a power saving mode (iirc) - the drive is turning itself off.

Figure out how to turn that mode off and you should be golden. Sorry I don't remember more - it's been a while. That should leave you with the information you need to Google it though.
 

Draexelion

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I did that just now by going into Wii u settings>data management and held down on the d-pad for about a second and held down start (+) and select (-) together until the "disable sleep mode on the USB storage" message appeared and then I clicked disable. Immediately after that I got a message saying that the usb USB storage has been disconnected and that I should check if it's getting enough power. While the message was displayed, the drive was blinking strangely. it was like blink-blink-blink and then the light was stable and then again blink-blink-blink. I dont understand what's going on.. I'm kinda freaking out...
 

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And if that's the case and the y cable can't properly power it - you're gonna need to use an ac power source somehow.
 

Draexelion

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And if that's the case and the y cable can't properly power it - you're gonna need to use an ac power source somehow.
I tried to power it with a vita adapter and also a android adapter.. I'll try to find a y cable that fits my external HDD and see how it goes.. it's just really sad honestly, it gave me hope for 2 days and everything was working fine and then boom.. I dont get it
 

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I tried to power it with a vita adapter and also a android adapter.. I'll try to find a y cable that fits my external HDD and see how it goes.. it's just really sad honestly, it gave me hope for 2 days and everything was working fine and then boom.. I dont get it

Having a Y-cable that connects directly to the drive could help in a couple of ways. Adding the extra connector and cable adds to the resistance, lowering the power that can get through. The socket on that Y-cable also looks kind of cheap, it could be the HDD plug is a little loose and its losing the connection. I've had that happen with a USB extension cable and a keyboard. Everything else worked fine with the cable, but the keyboard would randomly drop out. Replaced the extension and problem solved.
 
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Draexelion

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It could be one of the cables is faulty or the connection is loose. Also most Y-cables plug directly into the HDD, that one you have with a standard port on it is kind of weird.
So is this the y cable I need? I'm gonna pick it up tomorrow and see how it goes.. wish me luck!
micro-usb-3-0-kabel-med-extra-strom-matning.jpeg
 

spectral

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Yeah, assuming you have a USB 3.0 HDD, thats the right cable. Its easy enough to tell, because the end that plugs into the HDD will look like the one on the hdd cable you already have.

Out of interest, try connecting the HDD to the console without the Y-cable to see it it behaves any differently.
 
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Draexelion

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Yeah, assuming you have a USB 3.0 HDD, thats the right cable. Its easy enough to tell, because the end that plugs into the HDD will look like the one on the hdd cable you already have.

Out of interest, try connecting the HDD to the console without the Y-cable to see it it behaves any differently.
I haven't even thought about connecting it without the y cable.. everything is working absolutely fine.. it's been 3 minutes now.. I'll update soon
 
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Draexelion

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Yeah, assuming you have a USB 3.0 HDD, thats the right cable. Its easy enough to tell, because the end that plugs into the HDD will look like the one on the hdd cable you already have.

Out of interest, try connecting the HDD to the console without the Y-cable to see it it behaves any differently.
Update: it's been 20 minutes since I've left out the y cable and everything is amazingly fine.. now I really don't get it.. does that mean that the Wii u actually has the power to power up the hard drive using only one USB cable? I'm shook
 
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spectral

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Update: it's been 20 minutes since I've left out the y cable and everything is amazingly fine.. now I really don't get it.. does that mean that the Wii u actually has the power to power up the hard drive using only one USB cable? I'm shook

No, problem with the Wii and Wii U has never been that the HDD's just wont work at all. It's that the ports are right on the verge of not supplying enough power. So a slight momentary drop can crash it. It's not something that should be happening too often, however given how cheap Y-cables are most people just use them to avoid the possibility. How often it occurs can depends on the HDD as not all use exactly the same amount of power. I'm sure plenty of people play fine without ever using a Y-cable.

I think its safe to say the Y-cable you have has been to blame for the problems you've been having. All that said above, given that they don't cost much I'd still say you're better off getting one like the one in the picture. Better to be using one and it not be needed than the HDD losing power at a bad time and corrupting some of the data.
 
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Draexelion

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No, problem with the Wii and Wii U has never been that the HDD's just wont work at all. It's that the ports are right on the verge of not supplying enough power. So a slight momentary drop can crash it. It's not something that should be happening too often, however given how cheap Y-cables are most people just use them to avoid the possibility. How often it occurs can depends on the HDD as not all use exactly the same amount of power. I'm sure plenty of people play fine without ever using a Y-cable.

I think its safe to say the Y-cable you have has been to blame for the problems you've been having. All that said above, given that they don't cost much I'd still say you're better off getting one like the one in the picture. Better to be using one and it not be needed than the HDD losing power at a bad time and corrupting some of the data.
Yeah I'm definitely buying that other y cable and returning the one I bought. And about the data, it seems that the entire kaboozle has damaged add-on content for some of the games and nothing else (I hope).. Thank you guys for all the help! GBAtemp is full of awesome people :bow:love this website to death!
 
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Arecaidian Fox

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There's potentially an auto-shutoff in the drive firmware itself. WD I think does do that, and I think they also offer software that can change firmware settings in the drive. I'm not 100% sure, but it's something to look into.
 
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Draexelion

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There's potentially an auto-shutoff in the drive firmware itself. WD I think does do that, and I think they also offer software that can change firmware settings in the drive. I'm not 100% sure, but it's something to look into.
Thanks for the info! I will look into that if the problem persists after getting the y cable mentioned in the conversation above.
 

spectral

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No probs. Glad
Thanks for the info! I will look into that if the problem persists after getting the y cable mentioned in the conversation above.

Given the immediate improvement from removing that Y-cable, it's safe to assume the problem you've been having was caused by that. Best to wait and see if the power saving causes any problems or not before trying to fix it. On most HDD's it never causes a problem.
 
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