Hardware WD Portable Hard Drive Not Working

[drfsupercenter]

I even bought myself a splitter, one of these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/190912682952?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Since I knew the Wii U had issues with portable hard drives.

The model I have is a 1TB My Passport in black. It works just fine on my computer, and I haven't touched it at all (it's still got the stock software on it)

I plug it into my Wii U and the LED flashes, but that's it. The system doesn't recognize it and if I go to "format USB device" it just says "Checking USB storage device..." forever.

Any idea why it won't work? I really want to avoid having to plug a hard drive into the wall... needing TWO power plugs for one console is just annoying, especially when I already have a charger for my gamepad.

Anyone have any experience with these? If it's just a USB 3.0 issue, I'm surprised the console doesn't down-speed it to USB 2.0 like every other device on the planet...

 

[Jan1tor]

It shouldn't make a difference but sometimes it does. The Wii U is USB 2.0. Most of the time the cables are backwards compatible but not always. It may be the cable. It really is best if you use an external power supply for the drive, mainly because it won't tax the power supply any more than needed. This is one reason why Nintendo encourages the external power supply.

 

[drfsupercenter]

The cable works fine over USB 2.0 with my laptop, so I don't think it's that. I'll call Nintendo and see what they have to say.

--Edit--

That's strange. I plugged it back in and now it's working. Weird.

 

[Theconejo]

I've noticed that it makes a difference which male USB(from the split) goes into the top female USB port. Test it out and let me know if that's right if you want.