LIES, DAMNED LIES
So, I'm running out of space on my hard drives again. Between a solid 100GB of comics, nearly as many TV shows, and I don't even want to know how much porn, things are getting a bit cramped in here. While the laptop's been exceedingly helpful in terms of reading/watching a lot of the massive backlog I've built up, it and its piddly 160GB hard drive isn't quite so useful for actually sorting through all of it, clearing out the doubles and so forth. Which is a particular concern with the comics, where I've been downloading DCP packs and entire series without even bothering to check for redundancies. And the full-sized external drive they're all stored on is far too clunky and annoying for me to want to cart it with me to work so I can sort them properly there. So I decided to kill both birds and buy a laptop-sized external. I was tempted by the red 160GB WD Passports I saw at Best Buy when I was looking for a mouse, which would've fit the red & black theme I've got going with this thing, but the regular black 250GB wasn't that much more expensive, so I went with that. After a nice Singles Awareness Day's evening getting drunk with friends, I got home, popped it out of the package, and plugged it into the desktop to start transferring the comics over.
Or would've, if the desktop would admit it existed.
The light was on and something in the drive was making it barely vibrate, so I knew it wasn't completely dead, but it wasn't registering with the system at all. Tried running through the Add Hardware wizard, switching USB ports, nothing worked. Tried it on the laptop, still wouldn't register. Tried starting up the laptop with it plugged in, still nothing. As far as my computers were concerned, there's nothing there. The sad excuse for instructions that came with it consisted entirely of a picture of the USB cable being plugged in, so no help there. So I pulled up WD's webpage, dug around in thier help section, and eventually stumbled over something interesting. The drive, with the cable supplied, requires a USB port that can supply 1000mA of power. This fact is not mentioned anywhere on the drive's packaging, nor in the documentation. The only thing that even begins to reference it is an asterixed comment to its claims of being USB powered that dismissively states, and I quote, "A special cable is available for the few computers that limit bus power", in teeny-tiny text. Surely with a statement like that it's a rare problem affecting only the most obsolete of computers, right?
None of my USB ports, on either my desktop or my laptop, run over 500mA. (You can find this out in XP by opening the Device Manager in System, expanding the USB controllers tree, double-clicking one of the USB Roots to bring up the properties, and checking the Power tab.) The desktop, I could maybe see it being an issue; the case is over three years old now, and was a pretty inexpensive one to begin with, but the laptop? The one that I got brand-new, less than two months ago? The frickin' Dell Inspiron 1520? The workhorse model of one of the more popular laptop manufacturers, arguably one of the most dirt-common laptops in the country? This counts as a "few computers"?
What the fuck are you smokin', WD?
But they do offer a 'fix' for this on that page they had buried in their garbage user FAQ. You can buy that 'special cable' of thiers, a Y-cable that draws on two USB ports to supply the required power, from thier helpful online store... For ten bucks, plus another seven for their base seven-day shipping.
...
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck you, WD. I've already paid well over a hundred bucks for your product that doesn't work as supplied, and now you want me to blow seventeen bucks and wait a damn week because you're too damn cheap to include both cables in the damned package. I've got space issues that I wanted to deal with now. Since I can't because you're cheap pricks, I'm going to hit up Circut City on the way into work tonight and see if they can sell me something that'll actually work. If that happens to be the cable I apparently need, at a halfway decent price and right now, great. If it happens to be one of your competitor's products, one that's honest about its power requirements, even better.
Or would've, if the desktop would admit it existed.
The light was on and something in the drive was making it barely vibrate, so I knew it wasn't completely dead, but it wasn't registering with the system at all. Tried running through the Add Hardware wizard, switching USB ports, nothing worked. Tried it on the laptop, still wouldn't register. Tried starting up the laptop with it plugged in, still nothing. As far as my computers were concerned, there's nothing there. The sad excuse for instructions that came with it consisted entirely of a picture of the USB cable being plugged in, so no help there. So I pulled up WD's webpage, dug around in thier help section, and eventually stumbled over something interesting. The drive, with the cable supplied, requires a USB port that can supply 1000mA of power. This fact is not mentioned anywhere on the drive's packaging, nor in the documentation. The only thing that even begins to reference it is an asterixed comment to its claims of being USB powered that dismissively states, and I quote, "A special cable is available for the few computers that limit bus power", in teeny-tiny text. Surely with a statement like that it's a rare problem affecting only the most obsolete of computers, right?
None of my USB ports, on either my desktop or my laptop, run over 500mA. (You can find this out in XP by opening the Device Manager in System, expanding the USB controllers tree, double-clicking one of the USB Roots to bring up the properties, and checking the Power tab.) The desktop, I could maybe see it being an issue; the case is over three years old now, and was a pretty inexpensive one to begin with, but the laptop? The one that I got brand-new, less than two months ago? The frickin' Dell Inspiron 1520? The workhorse model of one of the more popular laptop manufacturers, arguably one of the most dirt-common laptops in the country? This counts as a "few computers"?
What the fuck are you smokin', WD?
But they do offer a 'fix' for this on that page they had buried in their garbage user FAQ. You can buy that 'special cable' of thiers, a Y-cable that draws on two USB ports to supply the required power, from thier helpful online store... For ten bucks, plus another seven for their base seven-day shipping.
...
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck you, WD. I've already paid well over a hundred bucks for your product that doesn't work as supplied, and now you want me to blow seventeen bucks and wait a damn week because you're too damn cheap to include both cables in the damned package. I've got space issues that I wanted to deal with now. Since I can't because you're cheap pricks, I'm going to hit up Circut City on the way into work tonight and see if they can sell me something that'll actually work. If that happens to be the cable I apparently need, at a halfway decent price and right now, great. If it happens to be one of your competitor's products, one that's honest about its power requirements, even better.