I just bought a USB 3 bus powered external Blue Ray player DVD multi writer with lightscribe. It needs 5v from USB3 as do most bus powered devices. I see from the threads on large hard drives that many do not work. I havent had this problem on a full size notebook or ultrabook, but have ( not unexpectedly) on a netbook. I connected a USB 3 Seagate 1.5 TB Go Flex to the surface 3 and it worked fine, and do did a USB 2 bus powered DVD rewriter, so I thought a USB 3 Blue ray player combo DVD writer would work also, but even with the surface charging it says "power surge on usb port" and "unrecognized device". I thought this device was meant to be a notebook replacement? It should at least have the option to increase the power to 5v when plugged in and charging. Using onedrive is great for documents, less so for large photos (60MB raw files, 30 of which makes 1.8 GB which would blow the monthly 3g quota, and take forever on free public wifi most of which is limited to 500mb anyway). It is entirely unsuitable for large movie files, which are 2-4 GB each. I will probably still be carrying bus powered USB 2 320 GB WD passport (1.5 matchbox size) for the movies, and the usb 2 DVD rewriter to watch or burn to DVD then. WIll have to leave the lightscribe creation to the larger ultrabook. You ask why am I still stuck in the dark ages using discs? I did some wedding photos recently, put 2GB on a disc and did a lightscribe silhouette photo of the wedding couple on the other side, they loved it. Sending a link to cloud files is not the same. Visiting people overseas its easier to make a disc of photos and moveis to give them. But yes I do often just load stuff to the cloud and send a link more often than burning discs t

Hi pidasms,

The main issue is that USB 3 Blue ray player won`t work in the surface 3 ,right ?
To make a device work correctly ,we should get a compatible driver .Have you tried to download the driver for the device from the manufacturer website ?

Considering this issue is related to the Surface 3 ,we have a specific forum for this device ,we can try to ask for help there .They are more familiar with this device and they may have more resources to resolve the issue .
Surface
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface

Best regards

You should try a Y-cable with one end plugged into AC power, or try a powered USB hub. The Surface folks say that the power on the SP3 to USB is EXACTLY to spec. Whether true or not, it's obvious many folks can't power their drives and writers. For most, supplying external power to the device solves the problem. Some have been able to plug a Y cable into the device and into the power brick fo

Hi pidasms,

The main issue is that USB 3 Blue ray player won`t work in the Surface Pro 3 ,right ?
To make a device work correctly ,we should get a compatible driver .Have you tried to download the driver for the device from the manufacturer website

Best r

That would be a USB 2 one I presume? I will have a look but it means being tethered to power. I have a USB 2 DVD rewriter which works fine, and a Seagate goflex 1.5 TB USB 3 hard drive which works fine. If there is enough power for that why not a blue ray player? The blue ray player works fine on a Tower PC. The manufascturer of the player has confirmed "small" devices like the surface wont have enough power. I dont fully understand this, but am familiar with it, as USB front panel ports on PC Towers often dont power large devices and they work ok on the rear ports which have more power. Larger notebook computers also seem to have no trouble. Before the surface I used a netbook, and it wouldnt run a USB2 hard drive larger than 320 GB.

Hi pidasms,

" The manufascturer of the player has confirmed "small" devices like the surface wont have enough power"

Since the device manufacturer has declared that there is an issue running in a small device. We can ask for help from the device manufacturer to confirm whether this device can work in Surface 3 ?

If it can run well in Surface 3 then we can try to ask for help from the Surface 3 forum as I posted before .

Best regards

On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 21:34:16 +0000, pidasms wrote:   >That would be a USB 2 one I presume? I will have a look but it means being tethered to power.     That's the solution that has worked for others.  

I wasn't confident a USB 2 cable would be fast enough for blue ray, but I found a USB 3 one from Germany  Delock Y-Cable USB 3.0 A to 2 x USB 3.0 A 0.3m   

I got the y cable from Germany, it powers the USB 3 blueray player writer no problems, it also powers my old USB 2 DVD rewriter properly. I checked both of them in my old win 7 netbook and the usb 2 rewriter works fine and plays movies without a stutter, the usb 3 writer doesn't work. the most the netbook takes is a 320GB external hard drive, whereas the surface pro 3 has no trouble reading and writing to a Seagate 1.5 TB USB external hard drive! . I also bought a 4 port USB 3 hub and it too works fine with the y cable. Maybe Microsoft should sell them as an option if it really wants to market this as a laptop replacement? I also bought a USB SDXC card reader, so now I can use the surface for discs, usb drives and sticks and my cameras SDXC card. With these accessories it is now a laptop replacement, but as it also needs adapters for the display port for both VGA and HDMI to connect to TVs ( all HDMI for years to come, cant see many people throwing away good TVs for 4K ones when even full HD is not broadcast often) and to data projectors ( all still VGA and DVI, I have only seen 1 new one with HDMI ( and I tried a HDMI to DVI converter for a presentation, didn't work on the old data projector, wrong "handshake". Embarrassing, but was able to use a 60' TV with HDMI)). so in addition to the surface and mouse keyboard and charger I need a bag of accessories. maybe a traditional 13" laptop with DVD drive, SD slot and VG and HDMI ports would have been lighter and less clutter to carry around?