the stock usb cable in port 1 actually will go into port 2 making them interchangeable. Takes a little more effort, but it will go if you wiggle it just a lil a bit. I know mine did

 

Does your set-up work in USB1? I have a passport 250 as well and I couldn't get it working in USB2, it would take quite a while to work, work intermittently and it wouldn't let me browse through the albums/songs while it was playing. The external hard drive also kept spinning up, stopping, spinning up, stopping. In USB1 it works perfect, I can listen to music while I scroll, it isn't spinning up and stopping and it works all the time. I've tried different cable options with no success. I suspect that the passport comes with a 16 inch cable for a reason. . .the 4 feet or so I need to get to the console is just too long.

 

Yes, I ended up trying the cable that came with the drive and it spins up on USB1, it did not find the mp3s I had on there. I found another thread about having to format the drive FAT32 not NTFS which I am in the process of doing. I tried the cable I am using in dash on USB2 with the drive on my laptop and it does not spin up either. So strange, I would think the USB cable would not matter but it seems to.

UPDATE: Got the drive working with the cable that came with it on USB1. Had to format it FAT32. Now have to figure out why it doesn't work on USB2...

 

Mine was formatted to FAT32 as well. . .now the same issue as you, works on USB1, but not on USB2. Please post if you find a solution. I spent an entire weekend monkeying with it, buying and exchanging cables at a local computer store all to no avail. Good luck!

 

How do you reformat the drive?

 

Google Fat32 format tool, there are a few different options that you can download that will allow you to reformat.

 

After a few hours of trying to get it done I was able to re-format to FAT32. In Vista you can only format drives smaller than 32 gigs to FAT32. Got it worked out. Now I'm just having issues with Sync not recognizing certain file types.