Thinkpads Forum

Hello,

I am having a problem getting a new Western Digital My Book 3TB (USB 3.0) external drive to work with my ThinkPad T530 running Windows 8. Here are the issues:

-The computer cannot get past the "ThinkPad" screen to boot Windows with the hard drive plugged in.

-The previous issue is not a huge deal, but this one is -- when plugged into the USB 3.0 port, I cannot transfer larger files without the transfer dying; the hard drive shutting down, and instantly turning back on. The hard drive will work with the USB 2.0 port. To add more confusion, this drive works fine with an identical T530 running Windows 7, so it seems unlikely that there is an issue with the hard drive. However, when plugging USB 2.0 devices into the 3.0 port, it works fine on the Windows 8 version.

I have read about various WD USB 3.0 drives having booting issue with various brands of computers, including many ThinkPad models. I have yet to come across any real solutions, though. Because I have come across so many other examples of this issue, it leads me to believe that there are not hardware issues with my ThinkPad, but rather this is an issue related to USB 3.0 in general.

What do all of you think?

After working with Lenovo, Western Digital and Seagate, I finally learned that the motherboard on the Lenovo T520 simply will not support a 3TB drive. I returned my 3TB drive and went with a 2TB drive and the issue resolved itself.

I ended up returning the WD drive and exchanging it for a Toshiba 3TB drive. It works perfectly fine with my T530.

Since it's not noted anywhere, I'm adding another incompatible drive: Transcend StoreJet USB 3.0 2 TB (internally a Toshiba MQ01ABB200), maybe it helps someone to find this post faster than me when looking for a solution to this problem. When connected to the USB 3.0 port of a T530, the Transcend will from time to time behave erratically when I watch a movie from the drive. When I look in the Windows Event Log, in the system log I see warning events with the source "disk" and ID 153 - "The IO operation at logical block address deadbeef for Disk 0 was retried.". There are no errors when the drive is plugged in the yellow USB 2.0 port of my T530.

I have also a Transcend StoreJet 1 TB and 500 GB (both USB 3.0 drives) and they both work flawlessly with the T530. I have also tried a "split" USB cable - with two USB type A connectors (one standard and one carrying only power), which I've received with the 1 TB and 500 GB Transcend, but it didn't solve the problem.

Is there any way to measure, whether it's the T530 failing to deliver enough power to the drive or the HDD having out of spec power requirements?

Something to check if you're having problems, remove the option to boot from USB HDD. It solved my W520 boot problem (although that was not a 3TB drive).