True Image not recognizing external USB drive

I have 2 issues
I have acronis true image 11. I keep my images on an Western digital Passport external drive

ISSUE #1----when I boot off the CD rom in a laptop, many times it does not recognize that i have the external drive hooked up. I have to reboot over and over agian, and eventually Most times (but not always) it will finally recogize that I have the drive hooked up to the USB Port.

Does anyone know why

ISSUE #2-- sometimes it recognizes the external drive but gives it the same letter as the cd rom drive and I can't do anything else.

But my main concern is issue #1 .. ANY IDEAS

 

Is the power for the usb drive supplied by the computer or a separate external power source?

Have you tried a different cable and/or a different usb outlet.

 

Have you tried a USB drive that uses an AC adapter?

Have you tried the Passport drive on another computer with the TI Rescue CD?

My guess is that the Passport drive is not spinning up properly, possibly due to insufficient power from the USB port. That is sometimes a problem with notebook USB ports.

As Grover suggested, try another port, but also if an AC powered USB drive works every time, then it's definitely a power problem.

Some USB powered drives also have an option to add an AC adapter. I'm not sure if that's possible with the WD Passport that you have.

 

Those Passports usually don't come with the cable that has the extra power pigtail. If you have another usb port and can borrow a cable with the extra power pigtail connector, that should work to make the drive recognizable.

 

dwnndrty was right. I got a pigtail, which plugs in to both usb ports on the laptop. This supplies extra power to the drive and so far seems to work.

 

The usb port provides 5 Volts but the current is limited. With a pigtail you can double the provided current, up to the limit of the USB controller in you laptop can provide. Usually, you will have trouble trying to run, e.g., two usb drives off of one such controller, the current demands of two drives will exceed dthe controller's capacity but using two oconnections to one drive will not.

Some times, if folks are having trouble with a usb drive, disconnecting some of the other usb devices (and thereby reducing the current load on the controller) will allow the drive to behave properly.