My new case hates my portable HD

F

fortyways

banned
So I went and got an Antec Solo mid-tower thing (my old one was a generic Acer case and had no room for a hard drive fan).

It has, on the front, two USB 2.0 connectors, HD audio in and out, and a firewire. When I plug my Western Digital 120 GB portable hard drive into the USB, I get no response. The light (on the HD) comes on, indicating that it has power, but the disk doesn't spin. It makes a series of soft clicks that I can only hear by holding the drive up to my ear.

Some things to note:

- The hard drive works without issues with the USB on the back of my box and on my laptop.
- Other things work when connected to the front USB. (flash drive, mouse, keyboard)
- My camera works using the same USB cable that the HD uses.

So that pretty much leaves me at the end of the process of elimination with nothing to show for it. I can't figure it out.

Any suggestions?

Oh yeah - Vista Home Premium 32-bit; scanned for new hardware and tried to update USB drivers and it told me they were up to date.
 
Does it work if you plug it into the ubs port on the back of the motherboard? My only guess is that somehow the front usb ports aren't supplying enough power.
 
Yeah, it runs with the motherboard's USB, I should have made that more clear.

I guess the case's USB could be 1.1, it just didn't seem reasonable to have that next to firewire and HD audio. And Antec makes nice things, usually.

My iPod is able to charge at its normal pace using the case's USB as well. For the purpose of testing I also hooked up some USB-powered speakers and they too work fine.

That's a nice box you've got there by the way.
 
No, the case's USB is 2.0, but larger USB peripherals require more power and the USB's on the front only supply minimal power, therefore it needs to be plugged directly into the motherboard.
 
I guess that seems reasonable, but it did work with Acer's generic case, which plugged into the same USB pins on the motherboard. I'm going to try plugging a media bay device in when I get home and I'll see if it works with the USB on there.

It wouldn't kill me to go back behind the computer every time I need to plug it in; I'd just like to be sure that it's not an indication of a bigger problem.
 
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