[Tfug] Failed drive == power problem?

[earljviolet at deserthowler.com]

On Sun, January 3, 2010 6:18 pm, Claude Rubinson wrote:
> 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
>
It might be a heat problem?
Earl