USB port

Hello,

Only just the other day, I wanted to transfer some documents from my 1TB portable hard drive but when i plugged it in, the surface told me that:

"USB mass storage device needs more power than the port can supply."

What do I do?

I had an external dvd rw drive that didnt work with just the power that comes from the usb port. Fortunately the dvd drive came with a kind of "Y" usb cable. One side goes to the surface usb port and i connect the other to an Ipad battery charger. It needs to be an ipad battery charger because is 2.1 amps....the iphone battery charger is 1 amp only.  I did that and everything worked fine. Check if your drive came with something like that.

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You do not have to use an iPad charger. The power supply that comes with the Surface Pro 3 has a 1A USB port. This is enough to run almost any external peripheral including hard drives and external dvd drives designed to run off USB. 

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It has been suggested that you get a Y-cable usb cable. I have one too for an external monitor that runs off USB3 only. Plug the power only end of the y-cable into the usb port on the Surface Pro 3 power supply.

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I forgot that the sp3 power supply have an available usb port for charging a device. Check if that work..if it dont try an ipad charger that the output is 2.1 amps.

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Question Info

Last updated October 8, 2020 Views 897 Applies to: