My external hard drive needs a usb 2.0 port but I only have usb 3.0 ports on my computer. How can I fix this?

[djack0771]

Have windows 10 with usb 3.0 ports. not recognizing my external hard drive which needs a usb 2.0 port. can I fix this?

 

[ffg7]

usb 3 ports are backwards compatible with usb 1 & usb 2 type ports. look for any black usb ports which are usb 1 & 2 type ports whereas usb 3 ports are usually blue.

 

[jbgarcia]

Like ffg7 said, USB 3.0 ports work with earlier standards such as 2.0. There must be something wrong with your drive. Or maybe you need to download specific drivers from the manufacturer's website to get it to work?

 

[mwex]

No, they don't work. My printer/scanner has a USB 2 cable, my laptop has USB 3. So it won't scan. Troubleshooting gives the message: "USB Composite Device is an older USB device and can't work properly with USB 3.

 

[mwex]

To all of you saying "it must work", "backwards compatible", etc, here's a direct quote of the message in Troubleshooting: "USB composite device is an older USB device and might not work with USB 3.0."
And here's the final message:
"USB Composite Device can't work properly with USB 3.0"

So--anyone knows an actual solution?

Have windows 10 with usb 3.0 ports. not recognizing my external hard drive which needs a usb 2.0 port. can I fix this?

 

[ffg7]

4 of the 9 pins in the usb3 port are exactly the same & do the same as the usb1 & 2 ports do. i occasionally had problems connecting usb3 device to a usb3 port but so far haven't since I upgraded to 64bit win 7 from 32bit version.