Surface Pro 3 USB DVD/CD drives and getting them to work together

Anonymous
2014-06-23T01:12:01+00:00

Have a Samsung USB DVD drive. My Surface Pro 3 will "see" the drive for purposes such as copying files and folder or photos. It will also play a much CD if placed in the drive. However, if I place a DVD or CD with software to install the Surface will just loop and cycle - making a little sort of beeping noise, and that's about it. The device also sort of disappears when this process is going on. I've fiddled around with the AutoPlay settings and nothing seems to make this happy.

I was able to install some of the software I needed by copying the CD info over to a USB hard drive and then running the Setup from there. But, just can't get the machine to run them from the DVD.

I'm new to Windows 8.1, so this probably isn't helping me figure this out. I get the feeling I just have something set wrong somewhere, but I sure can't figure out what it is.

Thanks

Surface | Surface Pro | Display and screen

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Anonymous
2014-07-22T10:52:43+00:00

Even with a powered USB hub the device can still not get enough power, depending on the device.

What I had to do for my LG DVD LG DVD drives is use a split USB cable. One connection to the device and two USB connections to the hub. The two connections are one for power and one for data. This works great and can be reasonably purchased from 'MONOPRICE.COM'. I don't remember if the SP3 charger has a USB on it, if not you will need a hub. If it does then put on USB port on the SP3 and one on the charger port.

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Anonymous
2014-07-01T18:28:31+00:00

I have had the same issue. The USB3 port on the SP3 isn't providing enough power. Until a fix is provided in the form of a firmware updated, (maybe or maybe not) get yourself a usb3-y cable. Plug the secondary USB cable into the charging port on the AC power adapter.

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Anonymous
2014-06-25T22:23:59+00:00

Is this happening with the SP3 plugged into an AC source?

Does the DVD have a separate power supply?

If it doesn't have an external power supply, the SP3 port might not produce enough power to run it.

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Anonymous
2014-06-23T01:57:41+00:00

The drive does not have enough power for what you want it to do.  It does for a few basics but when installing software, the drive has to maintain a fixed RPM level.

I had a Samsung USB DVD drive before and I think mine had an additional dongle on the end to hook up to another USB port for additional power.

I would basically suggest to just continue doing what you are doing by transferring the files onto a USB pendrive and install from there.  No moving parts; no additional power needed to operate.  It would be a one time function anyhow and not worth changing the drive for.

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Barb Bowman 80,810 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2015-03-02T22:00:04+00:00

my LG external cd/dvd drive acts as if it is being disconnected and reconnected multiple times while i am trying to access files on the optical media. the surface will make its disconnect noise, the folder will close and then it will make the connected device noise and open the folder again. This will happen in the middle of trying to install a program and will error the installation out. I have tried two different drives and they both act the same way.

Try using a POWERED USB hub, or try a Y cable that can plug into the USB charging port on the SP3 power brick. There probably isn't enough power from the USB port on its own.

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Anonymous
2015-02-26T20:38:38+00:00

You actually have a "powered" USB hub now.  Look on your power brick for the Pro 3.  You will see a USB port.  If your DVD writer has a "Y" cable, plug the main plug into the tablet and the "branch" cable into that USB port on the power brick.  That will give you the power you need.

Normally, DVD writers are USB 2.0 (Blu-Ray 3.0 only) but newer models are coming out with USB 3.0.

As for external powered USB hubs?  Any model you want.  They are not technical and are just normal hubs with an external power supply.

There is a chance that the problem you have is the drive does not have enough power to operate.  Just use the power brick and try it out.

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Anonymous
2014-11-07T23:37:48+00:00

I thought I'd reply that this problem now appears to be fixed, and I don't have any problem with the USB3 ports on my docking station.

The problem seemed to be resolved after I applied the several Microsoft firmware updates, so make sure you download them all!

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Anonymous
2014-09-19T09:22:00+00:00

Hi all,

just made a discovery: the previously non-connecting external hard drive USB 3.0 now connects, but only when the Surface Pro 3 is connected to power with its power lead.

Although this may be annoying on the road, at least I can now use the drive when power is connected.

David

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Anonymous
2014-09-17T17:05:08+00:00

I am having the same problem as everyone else: my external HDD won't work. It's a 750GB USB 2.0 WD. Even when I plug it into the Surface Pro 3's docking station it won't work.

Ah, finally got it to work: I connected the HDD to one of my monitors, which have powered USB ports, even though they are only USB 1.0.

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Anonymous
2014-08-26T09:47:24+00:00

It will support external optical drives, BUT, the USB port is underpowered.

Make sure that the external drive has a "Y" cable and you will need a powered USB hub to provide the extra power to the drive.  Once you do that, the tablet will support most drive models on the market.

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Anonymous
2014-08-07T12:02:11+00:00

I purchased a Samsung Ultra Thin Portable DVD writer.  I am trying to load a parts program to use on my surface Pro 3.  The SP3 keep saying that it doesn't have enough power.  It is plugged into the ac adapter.  SE-218

I have the same USB writer.  I purchased the following USB Y cable

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-USB2HABMY1-Cable-External-Drive/dp/B003WV5DMO/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1407412485&sr=1-1&keywords=USB2HABMY1

Note that it is USB A to mini B, since the Samsung SE-218 uses mini USB cable.  Also note that my version is only 1 ft, which is relatively short, but I like it since there is less to carry.  They have a 3 ft version.  I plug the red one into power supply of the surface pro 3 and it works.  I can read and write to DVDs.

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Anonymous
2014-08-06T22:33:16+00:00

The DVD drive is what does not have enough power.  On the DVD writer, is there a "Y" cable attached to it.  One end goes into the tablet and the other can be plugged into a regular PC or laptop and it is designed to provide more power.

If the DVD writer does not have a "Y" cable, it won't work.  There is no other way of boosting the power.  The USB 3.0 port has a fixed power output to provide to devices.  It cannot be increased.

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-04-04T02:54:07+00:00

    I have a DVD-ROM drive that reads and writes CDs and DVDs using only a single cable to the Surface Pro 3 (I have the 256GB i5).  I'm using a MacBook Air USB SuperDrive from 2010, HL-DT-ST DVDRW GX30N.

    I was able to write a full CD, no issues.  I did see two problems when burning a DVD-R:

    1. it works when I set the speed to 4X but consistently fails at 8X-- probably drawing too much current;
    2. the unit powers down after more than 3 minutes into writing a DVD, so I am able to copy over 300 MB of data at a time (the write succeeds) but not 700 MB (the write fails).  I still need to run that problem down and see if it is related to the SP3's aggressive power management.  I can create a full DVD if I run from a port on the SP3's dock instead of the undocked USB3.

    I used VLC to play movie files, and to test the SuperDrive outside of the dock I played over 20 min of a commercial DVD and a few minutes of a movie on a DVD-R.  So far, the drive has operated fine, with the exception of writing a large amount to a DVD.

    The downside is  this is not a plug-and-play solution; you have to go find and install the driver for it.  Apple intended the SuperDrive to run from a USB 2 port of one of 3 types of Mac, so it isn't even compatible with all Apple products.  But I had been running it from a Boot Camp partition of a MacBook Air, so I thought the Boot Camp drivers would enable it to run on a PC.  Sure enough, a Google search brings up several stories where people got that to work.  By now, the web also has many copies of the needed file: AppleODDinstaller.exe.  Just to be cautious of malware, I didn't use one of those exe files but went to Apple's site and downloaded the Bootcamp software package (it's big -- 800 MB). I extracted AppleODDinstaller.exe from it and ran it.  After that, SP3 recognized the hardware.

    So this is not the answer for everyone, just an example that at least one DVD-ROM drive can be made to do basic tasks without the hassle of extra cables or power supplies.

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