External HDD only detected on 1 of usb ports

English Hardware
1

It used to work in summer (approx. in July), and it worked in another linux distro I’ve been using for a while, however now only 1 usb port out of 3 works for my external harddrive.

Logs for ‘good’ usb port:


  528.972059] usb 1-11: new high-speed USB device number 8 using xhci_hcd
  529.120524] usb 1-11: New USB device found, idVendor=1058, idProduct=1042
  529.120527] usb 1-11: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=5
  529.120529] usb 1-11: Product: Elements 1042
  529.120531] usb 1-11: Manufacturer: Western Digital
  529.120532] usb 1-11: SerialNumber: 575831314139325039333436
  529.157604] usb-storage 1-11:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
  529.157725] scsi host3: usb-storage 1-11:1.0
  529.157842] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
  529.159310] usbcore: registered new interface driver uas
  530.176488] scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access     WD       Elements 1042    1019 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
  530.176787] sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
  530.177588] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Spinning up disk...
  537.344239] ready
  537.344441] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] 1953519616 512-byte logical blocks: (1.00 TB/932 GiB)
  537.344783] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
  537.344786] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 47 00 10 08
  537.345057] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
  537.345065] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
  537.463335]  sdb: sdb1
  537.464568] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
  538.594123] EXT4-fs (sdb1): recovery complete
  538.594426] EXT4-fs (sdb1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)

logs for ‘faulty’ usb port:

 2067.361229] usb 1-11: USB disconnect, device number 8
 2070.556169] usb 1-4: new high-speed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd
 2070.704961] usb 1-4: New USB device found, idVendor=1058, idProduct=1042
 2070.704965] usb 1-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=5
 2070.704967] usb 1-4: Product: Elements 1042
 2070.704969] usb 1-4: Manufacturer: Western Digital
 2070.704971] usb 1-4: SerialNumber: 575831314139325039333436
 2070.705640] usb-storage 1-4:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
 2070.706060] scsi host3: usb-storage 1-4:1.0

Google suggests that it might do with usb power saving (not enough power to spin up disk), so I’ve tried to disabling the feature overall (using /etc/default/tlp) for debug purposes, didn’t change anything.

Any suggested course of action? Its not really comfortable to exclusively use this exact port every time I need to connect my HDD.

2

Hi
Either use a powered hub, usb y-cable or a disk caddy you can hook a power pack to… sure it use to work, it’s probably been detrimental to the hardware over time and components may not be able to provide enough power now… what are the WD drive specs? At best one port 500mA that’s why consider at least a y-cable.

3

Thanks for the answer! That sounds unfortunate.