My Passport used for a few years now recently disconnects itself within 5 minutes. Upon troubleshooting the different options I can find, I downloaded WD Smartware and gets a warning “…has become too hot and will automatically shut itself down in less than 4 minutes if it does not cool sufficiently. Please safely remove your drive as soon as possible.”
Is there a way to tell if the device is really too hot? It is perfectly cool from the exterior by touch, and this happens every time I plug it in. It will disconnect itself when the time is up, and will not reconnect automatically.
Otherwise, is there a way to turn off the auto disconnect?
I have other external hard disk drives from WD and they work fine. Thank you for your help in advance!
Overheating problems sometimes occur because the USB port that the Passport drive is connected to is underpowered. Try powering the drive separately. I had this problem when trying to use the Passport drive with a TV digital converter box with a PVR feature. The passport drive serves as storage for the recorded OTA TV shows. The passport drive required more power than the digital converter box usb port could provide (used also with thumb drives that are less power hungry).
To power the ext. hdd passport drive separately I purchased a Y splitter cable. One usb male type A to a power adapter or powered usb hub; one usb male type A to the underpowered port on the TV digital converter box, and one type 3 micro B connector to the passport drive (male if you want to plug it directly into the drive, female if you want to connect to the usb cord that came with the drive).
