[Tfug] Failed drive == power problem?

[Claude Rubinson]

On Sun, Jan 03, 2010 at 05:28:40PM -0700, Zack Williams wrote:
> > After the drive had been mounted for a while, however, it began to
> > crash my notebook.  It would give me an "Over-current change on port
> > 1" error and the notebook would lose power and various indicator
> > lights (on the notebook) would start flashing.  The problem seems to
> > be with the failing hard drive.  Once I replaced the failing drive in
> > the enclosure with a good one, the problem went away.
> 
> USB is limited to 5V at 500mA (2.5W), and many drives will use more
> than that especially when they're spinning up.   That would most
> likely be the cause of your problems.    This is why a lot of USB
> external drives ship with an additional USB to power jack so the drive
> can use two ports.

But why would a failing drive cause this problem?  Because when I
first stuck the drive in the external enclosure, I was able to power
it up with no problems.

Claude