"loose mini USB ports"?

[jrszabo]

Hello, I have two WD external hard drives connected to my laptop by mini USB cables. Unfortunately it appears that the mini USB ports in both these drive are "loose", in other-words they don't provide a strong enough mechanical connection to hold my cables in place. I had WD replace both drives under warranty because the same problem existed with the original units I had bought. Has anybody got any ideas on how to solve this problem.

 

[Guest]

Not elegant, but adhesive tape ?

 

[jrszabo]

Not elegant, but adhesive tape ?

I tried that but the drive case was too hot and the tape adhesive "gave up". I was thinking more along the lines of deforming the cable connector enough to make up for the looseness of the port.

 

[Guest]

As mini USB cables are pretty universal (I seem to have a box full of them) could you afford to glue the present one in. An epoxy resin should deal with heat -- just make sure you use it sparingly so it doesn't creep onto the contacts.

 

[jrszabo]

As mini USB cables are pretty universal (I seem to have a box full of them) could you afford to glue the present one in. An epoxy resin should deal with heat -- just make sure you use it sparingly so it doesn't creep onto the contacts.

Since I only have to use of one hand, I don't feel that I can accomplish what you suggest.
I thought about another possibility; both these drives also have firewire ports. Since my laptop doesn't support firewire, could I possibly buy a firewire to USB adapter and go that route ?

 

[Guest]

I gather the issues I had with the computer apparently losing contact with a Firewire device may be to do with less frequent polling than is the case for USB, which is relatively reliable.

Firewire also does not respond well to being disconnected while live -- the general advice is the device should remain permanently connected. USB seems pretty easy about being hotswapped.

Sorry to be a downer, but I really wouldn't get involved with Firewire.

 

[jrszabo]

I gather the issues I had with the computer apparently losing contact with a Firewire device may be to do with less frequent polling than is the case for USB, which is relatively reliable.

Firewire also does not respond well to being disconnected while live -- the general advice is the device should remain permanently connected. USB seems pretty easy about being hotswapped.

Sorry to be a downer, but I really wouldn't get involved with Firewire.

OK then what about a eSATA port to USB adapter?

 

[Guest]

eSATA to USB ? New to me, I'm afraid.

 

[jrszabo]

I think that I finally found the least intrusive fix. Since the weight of the cable was pulling the plug loose from the port, I approached for that standpoint. My solution was the Velcro the cable to the side of the case. This formed a loop of the cable taking the tension off of the cable. I did last night on both drives that suffer from this problem; and so far it's working just fine!