USB Power output

I just bought a portable usb harddrive that gets its power from the usb port. However, the amps are to low to power it. Is there anyway to boost the amp output of the usb port?

I have a similar problem and have a multitude of portable, bus-powered, usb hard drives. I have found that it also seems to be a formatting issue more than a power issue. While I have an assortment of usb power cables and power adapters for my drives my G4 powebooks don't always recognize them as even existing. Curiously enough a drive that my powerbook can find and access while it is formatted as an NTFS drive (windows XP compatible), it will not find at all if it formatted as FAT32 (PC and Mac compatible) or HPFS (Mac only). This even happens if I am erasing and formatting the drive using the Disk Utility in OSX. It works while in NTFS mode, then when re-formatted and rebooted the powerbook can never find it again. I am kind of wondering if it is a GB limitation in drive size vs formatting in OSX.
I can say that the spin-up amperages required by manufacturers are a little suspect at times. The same manufacturer that says my notebook doesn't put out the 1A required for the drive to start is the same one that says it can sell me a .5A power adapter to fix my problem and is the same one whose drive seems to work fairly often without any additional power at all. Now I am no math genius but that doesn't seem to add up at all. There is also something to be said for the length of USB cable you are using. Most manufacturers will tell you, and I can also say from experience, that a USB cable longer than about 22 inches will usually require an additional power source for the drive, and that anything getting over 10ft and being bus-powered is unlikely to work. Once you reach that length you really need to include a self-powered USB hub in the serial chain.

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