WD My Passport Essential - Restarting constantly

WD External and Portable SSD Portable SSD
1

I have this problem that sometimes when the external Hard Drive is under a read/write process it suddenly restarts; it happens whenever I try to access the HD or the files in it, not always, but often. However, when attempting to transfer files between it and another external drive, it will always restart.

I have tried to find the source of the problem:

  • USB Ports - I tried connecting  to every port of my PC, the problem was still there.
  • USB Cable - After thinking for a while, I thought the problem might be the cable not sending enough power to the HD so I tried with other types of USB wires that I previously owned, including a “Y” cable. None of them solved the issue.
  • Formatting - I backed up everything I previously stored in the external drive to my local disk (currently my pc is saturated for this reason) and formatted it more than one time, the issue persisted.

Seeing there wasn’t another possibility, I assumed the HD had a hardware malfunction and decided to return it to the store, until I tested it on other computers. Surprisingly, it worked perfectly and handled large amounts of data transfers without problems, this is how I found out that the issue is only present on my system.

I find this strange because other external hard drives (irrelevant to Western Digital) were working fine on my computer; so long My Passport Essential is the only storage device giving me problems.

As additional information:

  • I’m using Windows 7.
  • The HD isn’t using the provided software as it’s mainly used for storage, but I saved it.
  • Sometimes, the activity on another external disk also restarts My Passport Essential.
2

It could be a Windows problem like a corrupt drive or controler on the chain from USB port to drive. Did you try deleting the driver, disconnect the drive reboot and reconnect drive? It will load a fresh driver.

Joe

3

Thanks for replying.

I just did it, but nothing changed and the problem is still present.

4

I am having the same problem. Except, I am on a Navy Ship and very limited on resources as far as power and substitute cables or anything else for that matter. My 500Gb drive connects and disconnects every 5 minutes or so pretty much every time I use it. I have no way to connect my non-government computer to the internet, and i can’t stop the boat from moving from side to side constantly. I didn’t expect a portable drive to be so sensitive. Any help would be appreciated. I tried uninstalling the driver and re-installing and the problem persists.