16 replies to this topic

[golf1410]

I have toshiba 2 TB canivo desk. This is the one that is recommended on Nintendo website. I have experience the issue of error code 160-0106. It says my external HDD had been removed and I have to pull the plug of wii u every time. Especially, it happens when I left wii u running and doing nothing for some time. It randomly happens. I thought it might be power source is not enough for HDD or it is a flaw of wii u firmware which had a lot of bugs.

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[Alex Atkin UK]

I had it happen once, but something fell off my desk at the time so I figured it jarred the USB cable so it momentarily disconnected.

Another possibility is that the Wii U may have tried to access the HDD while it was idle and didn't wait long enough for it to spin back up.

That would seem a pretty oversight on Nintendos part though as its a pretty fundamental function of external HDDs that they spin down when idle.

Edited by Alex Atkin UK, 28 January 2013 - 12:34 PM.

[Zonark]

I had this exact same problem on three of my external hdds is this a usb powered drive? if so get rid of it. If it requires two connections for usb at all get rid of it. You need to have a dedicated external power source for it to work properly with one usb connection cable

the drive i found that works best are the seagate free agents im using a 3tb housing and a 1tb drive inside its a usb 3.0 drive with dedicated external power source

if it is a wall powered external hdd make sure its a 12v plug that it came with. I had a wall powered one that was a 9.5v hdd and it didnt work. make sure the enclosure supports 12v as well dont just go plugging a 12v cable into a 9.5v or whatever v device or you will fry it.
a 3.5 and a 2.5 hdd needs a minimum of 12v to be powered correctly to not cause drop outs these drop outs cause that screen. Basically dont get any Eco Friendly drives because they have an automatic power saving mode which turns off the drive when its not being wrote or read.

oh and eco friendly drives inside as well is a no go

Edited by Zonark, 28 January 2013 - 02:24 PM.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Again, I'm pretty sure ALL external HDDs turn off the drive when its not in use as most HDDs do that automatically, its just when in a normal PC they are rarely left idle long enough.
Mine is a Seagate desktop drive in a PlusCom caddy, it turns off, but its only given me that error once as I mentioned above so I think it was just USB connector being knocked.

Also there are plenty of people using USB powered drives that works absolutely fine. With both USB cables plugged in, it shouldn't be any different to having it externally powered (which few 2.5" externals are as USB 3.0 has enough power with one cable and the Y adapters work fine for older USB).

Also the PSU the external comes with is also irrelevant, as it should come with whatever voltage it needs. If its designed for 9.5V and you plug in 12V, you are going to fry something, either the caddy electronics or that AND the HDD.

A 2.5" HDD certainly doesn't need 12V, they only ever use 5V.

Edited by Alex Atkin UK, 28 January 2013 - 01:49 PM.

[cannonshane]

Mine uses 2usb ports and I've never had a problem since day one.

[Zinix]

You need a Y cable. Same thing was happening to me, my Wii U would freeze and get that error.

Speaking of Y Cable, I still need one.

[Zonark]

Mine uses 2usb ports and I've never had a problem since day one.

Do you have all game data copied over?

Again, I'm pretty sure ALL external HDDs turn off the drive when its not in use as most HDDs do that automatically, its just when in a normal PC they are rarely left idle long enough.
Mine is a Seagate desktop drive in a PlusCom caddy, it turns off, but its only given me that error once as I mentioned above so I think it was just USB connector being knocked.

Also there are plenty of people using USB powered drives that works absolutely fine. With both USB cables plugged in, it shouldn't be any different to having it externally powered (which few 2.5" externals are as USB 3.0 has enough power with one cable and the Y adapters work fine for older USB).

Also the PSU the external comes with is also irrelevant, as it should come with whatever voltage it needs. If its designed for 9.5V and you plug in 12V, you are going to fry something, either the caddy electronics or that AND the HDD.

A 2.5" HDD certainly doesn't need 12V, they only ever use 5V.

All hdd main operating level is at 12v... im not saying they cant operate at 5v just they operate better at 12v
As for hdd i wasnt meaning for him to plug in a 12v into a 9.5v i was stating it would be best for him to change the enclosure to fit best operating levels.

The Y cable wont always solve it. Believe me i tried. Then i just when with PC Power specs and now it works perfectly the normal voltage for the HDD on usb is 5V using a Y cable increases the Power to 10V but still peek operating levels are at 12V which would be the best way

If you are using to much power drain on the HDD it will cause it to drop out when using a Y Cable

And as for the USB3.0 the power that is given to the device is dedicated by the power source not the cable in which all usb ports on the Wii U are 2.0 which are 2.0

Im literally just trying to get this guy the best quality he can get that way he wont have any issues to come

also check the drives RPM and see what its rated at as well that will change the amount of mA needed to run the drive

with the right specs you can basically make any encloser work on it

Edited by Zonark, 28 January 2013 - 02:11 PM.

[golf1410]

Today, I just left it running and see that the HDD switch itself off after it wasn't being used for some period and wii u os doesn't know how to turn the HDD back up on like windows. This is missing feature in wii u os. Another problem is the power like you guys said.

[Zonark]

That is correct, try changing the connector from cable select to Master and that should disable the power saving mode. Most hdd have that ability.

the whole eco friendly thing was created for the hibernation feature that pcs use. not to many people actually use it.

[golf1410]

That is correct, try changing the connector from cable select to Master and that should disable the power saving mode. Most hdd have that ability.

the whole eco friendly thing was created for the hibernation feature that pcs use. not to many people actually use it.

What do you mean by that? Can you give me more detail?

[Zonark]

First rule of thumb. How long have you owned this drive? What im about to tell you voids warranties since you need ro open the enclosure. This is more or less a last attempt. This makes the drive read as a primary master wjich disables spin down on most drives

On a harddrive by where the sata connections are there is a little 4 to 8 prong selector

http://www.google.co...biw=360&bih=615

the drive should show u what the settings are sometimes its printed directly on the circuit board. it needs to be set to master most or the time in externals there isnt a pin connector with the drive which makes it defalt to cable select in which we dont want.

Sorry about not direct linking the picture im on a cell phone typing this

[Alex Atkin UK]

You are mistaken as SATA doesn't have master/slave and even if it did, that has no bearing on the spin down that I am aware of.

What the jumpers are for is to enable compatibility modes such as pretending to be a SATA1 drive rather than a SATA2 or SATA 6Gbit, or making a larger HDD appear as a smaller one for devices which do not support drives that large.

SOME drives you can disable power management eg http://wdc.custhelp....-wd-sata-drives but I do not believe its mandatory so not all drives will support it. The newer Western Digital 2.5" external drives are not SATA at all, they have the USB circuitry directly on the HDD circuit board, so I doubt they have the jumpers at all.

As for HDDs main voltage being 12V, that is not true at all. The electronics run at 5V or even 3.3V, the spindle motor runs at 12V at least on 3.5" drives. With 2.5" drives its completely irrelevant as they ONLY use 5V externally, so we really do not need to know what voltages are used on the HDD itself - it derives them all from the 5V input which is why its ideal for USB.

Bottom line, no matter which externally powered caddy you use, they all convert the input voltage into 5V or 5V and 12V for 3.5" caddies. In fact a lot of "provide your own drive" caddies have an external PSU with four pins, two 12V and two 5V. So blaming the caddy input voltage makes no sense at all.

Edited by Alex Atkin UK, 29 January 2013 - 01:42 AM.

[Zonark]

Okay on a power supply whats the sata power cables voltage. 12v. Im providing him with this information to give him the best chance of success of getting the drive to stay powered on as well as providing fastest write speeds for the drive and quality of performance.
When u run a drive at 10v you forfeit the drives write and read speeds the drive also runs at a lower rpm in order too accommodate for the voltage loss when a sata drive is put in sata 6 and or slave mode or masters on a 10v circuit the drive runs the risk of not maintaining a proper reading speed thus showing it being disconnected. On a 12v circuit the drive speed maintains optimal read and right speeds all hdd are built for 12v

As for the hdd with yhe built in usb connector I believe its called pdi or something for those there is nothing that can be done but those should work no matter what since its built with that in mind

Edited by Zonark, 29 January 2013 - 02:00 AM.

[Alex Atkin UK]

On a PC power supply the SATA power cable has 12V, 5V and optionally 3.3V lines.

Devices designed for 2.5" drives (eg laptops and USB powered caddies) only have the 5V lines, as 2.5" drives by their nature have smaller platters which are easier to spin.

I'm really puzzled why you keep going on about feeding 10V into the 12V line on a HDD, as who is going to knowingly do that? You would be lucky if its able to spin up the platters at all.

The point is, if you have a caddy that is designed for 10V PSU or 20V, it really doesn't matter. The voltage once its passed through the caddies voltage rectification circuit will be correct, as long as you are using the PSU the caddy was designed for.

Edited by Alex Atkin UK, 29 January 2013 - 06:22 AM.

[Zonark]

Im talking about all drives in general plus the faster the platters spin the quicker read a write. Yes the voltage gets corrected bit the closer you are to the natural voltage for the drives peak preformance the better the drive will function. Example: put a 1.5v AA in a flashlight
If you put a 1v battery in its place the light is dimmer. The longevity of the light being on maybe the same because the mA burn at the same rate but the light fails to produce the correct brightness because its underpowered. Basically if you underpower a drive it will function slower or possibly not function at all or loose power. Im literally just trying to get him a set up that will work best. From what I recall the usb ports on the wii u are slightly underpowered causing these issues. To have his 2.5 work for sure he would need to match the mA or the drive to the wii u mA which is 500mA depending on the resistors leeway inside so if the drive requires 1.1mA just barely out of reach of two ports you will run into that issue of the drive turning off or not properly spinning up

[golf1410]

First rule of thumb. How long have you owned this drive? What im about to tell you voids warranties since you need ro open the enclosure. This is more or less a last attempt. This makes the drive read as a primary master wjich disables spin down on most drives
On a harddrive by where the sata connections are there is a little 4 to 8 prong selector
http://www.google.com/search?q=cable+select+sata+hard+drive&hl=en&tbo=d&rlz=1Y1TXGW_enUS521US521&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=bYUHUZjYEZKEqQHbgIGYDg&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=360&bih=615
the drive should show u what the settings are sometimes its printed directly on the circuit board. it needs to be set to master most or the time in externals there isnt a pin connector with the drive which makes it defalt to cable select in which we dont want.
Sorry about not direct linking the picture im on a cell phone typing this

I just bought it from Best buy. Basically, you want me to access throught the SATA port which will disable power saving. Is that right?

[009soulmaster]

First rule of thumb. How long have you owned this drive? What im about to tell you voids warranties since you need ro open the enclosure. This is more or less a last attempt. This makes the drive read as a primary master wjich disables spin down on most drives

On a harddrive by where the sata connections are there is a little 4 to 8 prong selector

http://www.google.co...biw=360&bih=615

the drive should show u what the settings are sometimes its printed directly on the circuit board. it needs to be set to master most or the time in externals there isnt a pin connector with the drive which makes it defalt to cable select in which we dont want.

Sorry about not direct linking the picture im on a cell phone typing this

Im dealing with the same issue as well and i just got mine two days ago from amazon. its a buffalo Ministation 550GB USB 2.0 how am i supposed to access the power saving feature. am i supposed to open it manually
http://www.amazon.com/BUFFALO-MiniStation-Stealth-Portable-Drive/dp/B0046RE21G