Review on 🔌 StarTech.com 1 ft USB Y Cable for External Hard Drive - USB A to mini B - USB 2.0 - 1 ft - Black - USB2HABMY1 by Brian Messerly

The long cable is very practical. This cable with optional USB connector (power supply only) is required if you have an external hard drive. I had a Hitachi 60GB SATA II laptop hard drive installed in a standard external USB 2.0 adapter case that came with a dual USB patch cord like this one, albeit much shorter, and I didn't use it much , preferring the longer Mini to use USB to a standard USB cable, which I've already had to connect a hard drive to. Well, after a couple of months the drive started to go haywire, getting write errors, disconnecting and reconnecting the device to the Windows system, etc. Realizing it might be a low voltage issue, I went back to the cable that came with it and back the problems stopped. I received this cable to return the drive to its normal place on my desk. Works perfectly!