Hardware Hard drive problems

[Essa20]

My hard drive is a Seagate Expansion Portable 1 TB. Yes I am using a y-cable. The problem i'm having is that my Wii U does not recognize the hard drive unless i firmly push the cable into the hard drive to the point where i fear it might damage it. Even so, after a couple of minutes of using the hard drive, the Wii U receives an error and I have to force shut it down. This is really annoying, and if try moving any data, the Wii U yet again receives an error. A couple of last things to note; I have disabled the USB sleep option, My warranty has expired, I have tried plugging the non data cable of the y cable into a socket using a phone charger, however this does not work at all and the Wii U does not even recognize the hard drive when i do this and finally, i have tried using the hard drive with the y cable on my laptop and it works just fine. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help with this issue.

EDIT: I forgot to mention; When I'm trying to play a game on my HDD, sometimes, rather than displaying an error, the Gamepad screen goes black and the HDMI disconnects. If i restart the gamepad, it cannot connect to the Wii U. This is easily solved by force closing the Wii U, but that does not stop the problem from occurring again.

 

[Dust2dust]

You have to do some troubleshooting. Try any of these options, if you have the material at your disposal.
-Use different USB ports on the console
-use different Y cable
-use different hard drive (preferably an externally powered HD) to see if there's anything wrong on the Wii U side.

Might be just incompatibility between Wii U and your Seagate drive.

 

[Essa20]

I've tried options 1 and 3 on that list, using another USB port doesn't work and when I use another hard drive, the new one works well, but unfortunately does not even begin to compare in size (only 32 GB). At this point, I'm starting to believe it's the cable.
EDIT: Forgot to tag @Dust2dust

 

[spectral]

Sounds like the connector on the HDD is loose/faulty. I had the same thing happen to an external USB HDD caddy. Although it working fine on the PC would suggest otherwise, is it placed somewhere more stable when connected to the PC?

With mine it would work but the slightest movement broke the connection. Even the weight of the cable could do it.

 

[toxic9]

That symptom usually means HDD is not receiving correct voltage.

 

[Essa20]

Sounds like the connector on the HDD is loose/faulty. I had the same thing happen to an external USB HDD caddy. Although it working fine on the PC would suggest otherwise, is it placed somewhere more stable when connected to the PC?

With mine it would work but the slightest movement broke the connection. Even the weight of the cable could do it.

This is exactly what is happening although for the laptop I don't need to put it in a stable position. Any suggestion for the connector?

 

[toxic9]

You have to open the HDD case gently and check why it is loose (and somehow fix it).
Usually the external HDDs have a small adapter SATA -> Micro-USB Type-B Female
Check here

 

[spectral]

This is exactly what is happening although for the laptop I don't need to put it in a stable position. Any suggestion for the connector?

I don't think it is the connector then or it would happen on the laptop too. I guess it could be loose at Wii U end. Maybe one of the ports is a little loose. Have you tried changing which port the data cable on the Y cable is plugged into?

Also when you tried the phone charger for power, are you 100% sure you didn't get them the wrong way round? That should have worked at least as well as plugging it into the wii u

 

[Essa20]

I don't think it is the connector then or it would happen on the laptop too. I guess it could be loose at Wii U end. Maybe one of the ports is a little loose. Have you tried changing which port the data cable on the Y cable is plugged into?

Also when you tried the phone charger for power, are you 100% sure you didn't get them the wrong way round? That should have worked at least as well as plugging it into the wii u

I have tried changing the ports and that also did not work. As for the phone charger, yes I am 100% sure i did not get them wrong, i plugged the thinner USB 2.0 cable into the phone charger

 

[Essa20]

You have to open the HDD case gently and check why it is loose (and somehow fix it).
Usually the external HDDs have a small adapter SATA -> Micro-USB Type-B Female
Check here

I popped open the HDD and everything seemed completely normal. I can send pictures if you need them.

 

[Essa20]

I forgot to mention; When I'm trying to play a game on my HDD, sometimes, rather than displaying an error, the Gamepad screen goes black and the HDMI disconnects. If i restart the gamepad, it cannot connect to the Wii U. This is easily solved by force closing the Wii U, but that does not stop the problem from occurring again. Will add this information to my main post for future reference.

 

[toxic9]

I forgot to mention; When I'm trying to play a game on my HDD, sometimes, rather than displaying an error, the Gamepad screen goes black and the HDMI disconnects. If i restart the gamepad, it cannot connect to the Wii U. This is easily solved by force closing the Wii U, but that does not stop the problem from occurring again. Will add this information to my main post for future reference.

I think you should try different equipment and find the culprit.

 

[Classicgamer]

I was using a similar HDD setup and had random black screen errors related to hard drive that only occurred _after_ wup installation which lead me to believe my setup was good.

I bought a cheap anker powered usb hub and all is well now.

 

[Essa20]

Thanks everyone for your replies, but I've found plugging in one cable into my PC works very well. I might still try a powered USB hub for convenience.