The Passport drives gave me errors in loading up with ISO files due to the built in crapware that WD put on. I could not completely disable the crapware. I use WD elements portable now and they work great.

Are you sure its the USB 3.0 issue and not the crapware?

 

you should reformat the HDD to get rid of the "crap-ware" WD oput in (if you don't need to use the utills they put in)

 

WD has a live CD build into the firmware (so when u plug in the hard drive into your PC its like you plugged in 2 devices, the hard drive and the WD live CD), u may want to install their WD software to disable the live CD and also to disable the sleep timer... other than that, I agree, their software is pointless.

The issue of not being able to plug in more than 1 of the same HDD has nothing to do with USB 3.0. I've had this happen to me 2 or 3 times with USB2.0 WD hard drives. This can easily be fixed by changing the drive signature of one of the hard drives. You can do this by running a cmd window in windows as an administrator then entering in a few commands. I have the commands saved at home, but if u google how to change the drive signature of a hard drive, u will probably find some good instructions like I did. If after a day or so u still can't figure it out, send me a PM and just remind me about this post and ask me to share the instructions I have.

Re. USB3.0 not working on the Wii... that sucks! I just got a hard drive with USB 3.0 delivered to me yesterday, I will try it out and let u know if it works using the USB 3.0 cable.

The beauty of my USB 3.0 hard drive, is that it's a Seagate GoFlex Upgradable hard drive. Meaning I can remove the USB3.0 connector and insert a standard USB2.0 connector, or even esata. So if the Wii doesn't work with my USB3.0 cable, I can just use a standard USB2.0 cable and it will work for sure! I love these GoFlex upgrade cables, they even allow u to plug a hard drive withOUT an enclosure into a Wii/PC using USB2.0, USB3.0, eSATA, firewire, etc. So if u want cheap storage, u can just buy a HDD without a case and use the GoFlex cables to plug in the hard drive directly without needing an enclosure!

Here's a link to the drives I'm talking about, and in my opinion, these are the best portable drives on the market today... but FYI, they're cheaper through newegg.com or newegg.ca
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/...able-hard-drive

 

I had the same problem with 2 identical 500Gb WD Passport Essential drives. I tried one on an onboard port and one on a PCI card port (that uses a different chipset) to no avail.

 

i had the same problem with 2 drives it was 2 identical WD 1tbs. heres something weird that i found. the two drives worked fine in windows xp, but windows 7 will only recognize 1, the other is seen, but its labeled with a "*". if you plug both drives in then open up EASEUS partition manager it will see them, but only 1 is usable.

@xflak, thanks for that tip about the drives. may be help in the future for me.

 

I bought a TEVION 500 GB (USB 1, 1.1, 2, 3 compatibility) from Aldi.

And my experience after hours testing is following:

• Clone drive with pc no problem
• Bootup CFG & GX Loader hangs sometimes
• Never managed to startup a game in CFG loader further than the health screen, mostly it stucks while loading the IOS
• GX Loader seems to be the same but if I wait 5 secs after starting GX loader I sometimes be able to launch a game and play it
• GX loader seems to be more compatible with USB 3.0 drives
• When the wii hangs, it looks like the drives has been powered off
• After the first 3 seconds of initialing the drive in CFG loader, the drive isn't responsive anymore mostly, results in a freeze

To make sure that this problems aren't from my wii, I also tried it with a normal USB 2.0 disk and it works like a charm.

 

Sorry to go OT, but there is an easier fix in Win7.
Go to Disk Management, you will see your drive that is 'offline'. ("This disk is offline because it has a signature collision with another disk.")
Simply right click on the left box (where it says offline) and select 'Online'.

 

I hate to bump this thread seeing as though it's several weeks unconscious, but here's my experience with one USB3.0 HDD....

I had 3 WII’s in the house yesterday (all configured the same more or less); the two with prior HDDs recognized it immediately and at all of several boots each; the newly modded one needed some prodding initially (as all wiis do initially it seems, USB3.0 or not), but has recognized it after every boot since. tried it with 250WiiFlow2.1/Mplayer/WiiMC/the emulatorGX family, and the configuration below (also in my sig)….

The drive: 2TB Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk USB3.0 (3.5” externally powered - model 9ZQAN1-570)…using only the stock USB3.0 cable...purchased at the local Wal-Mart for $90.

The Wii’s: 4.2U; Bootmii/boot2 (v0.8); HBC/58 (v1.0.8); priiloader v0.6 (one wii has v0.5); 202v5[57]; Hermes v5.1 (38/37/57 respectively); 236; 249v17; 250v20[57]; DarkCORPv1.1 (one wii has most current IOSes/no CORP)

i'll do a bit more testing, but honestly, i don't foresee this particular model of USB3.0 drive behaving any differently than any USB2.0 HDD i've ever tried....

 

USB's have been and always will be 100% backwards compatible. If your wii has problems with your hard drive, your hard drive may use different instruction (aka drivers) than a standard usb hdd.

 

This discussion about the WD essential drives has been made elsewhere already.

Some work, others don't and others work sometime.

Long story short, stay away from them unless you like gambling.

Read a few articles on their support forum if this doesn't convince you.