USB Cable for Portable Hard Drive

[abhijitroy]

I have recently purchased one 40GB portable hard drive of Seagate with a casing from Enter Multimedia (www.entermultimedia.com). It is working fine with my both - office & home - computers. I've Windows XP OS in both the computers. However, in order not to carry the USB cord all the time I tried to get one extra USB cord from the market. But, to my dismay all the USB cords avilable in Kolkata did not work at all. After connecting with these cords firstly, the red LED indicator starts glowing (indicating "not ready") and secondly in My Computer no icon for the portable hard disk appears. However, upon replaced by the manufacturers cable everything works fine. Please tell me what type of cable is to be used with this portable hard drive.
My second quarry is that the cable that has been supplied with the casing has three USB Male connectors. It is a sort of Y-type - at one end there is a single USB plug and at the other end one extra plug comes out from the end USB plug. I can't understand the use of the third USB plug. Iam using only the two plugs. Please tell me the use of the third USB plug. Will it improve the data transfer rate?

 

[drvarunmehta]

The third plug provides extra power to the portable hard drive.
That's exactly why other USB cables you are trying aren't working with the portable hard drive. You need a USB cable similar to the one provided by the manufacturer.

 

[abhijitroy]

Well, but the portable hard disk is working fine without the third plug.

 

[drvarunmehta]

That's because new USB ports can provide enough power from just one port. The extra plug is for older PC's. If the USB cables you buy from the market don't work, contact the manufacturer for a replacement cable. You might end up paying more but atleast it'll work.

 

[hdsk.23]

ya drvarunmehta is right... the third one is required in older pc's. and it is build for power purposes!!