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Apple released the MacBook Pro 15" Unibody, the second generation of the MacBook Pro, in October 2008 with a new aluminum upper case machined from a single aluminum block.

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Mid 2012 - USB ports only work with a wired keyboard and mouse.

My mid 2012 mac book pro 15” is having a USB issue. I can power a wired keyboard with it, but any other device will not work. I have tried this in both Mac OS, and windows 7 through boot camp. I hooked a meter up to the USB ports, and read 5v, but I don’t currently have a way to check the current with a load. Thanks for any help you can provide. I would love to keep this machine alive for as long as possible.

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Is this a standard or a Retina machine?

What are you trying to use that does not work? What system are you running?

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It is a standard unibody A1286. I'm currently running 10.14.5, and I have tried USB drives, wireless mice, external HDD's, all fail to work except for a wired keyboard or mouse. It got a little jostled around by the movers when I was moving back to the states. I had to reseat the ram to get it to boot, and currently the left shift and control keys aren't functioning either. Other than that, and the USB issues it seems to be ok though.

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See how you internal drive is now formatted and if High Sierra or Mojave have transformed it to APSF instead of GUID formatting.

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It looks like it's APSF now. Should I change it back? If so, can you tell me how?

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You can't change it back but it probably will not see your GUID external drives and I have not figured a way around this yet. Maybe @danj has?

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exFAT file system format with MBR partition table may be the best option? For external hard drives it allows read and writes on both Mac and windows.

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Let me correct a few things… HFS+ & APFS file systems both use GUID as their drive format. High Sierra installer could be setup before you run it so not to alter the SSD drive’s file system to APFS (HDD’s where not altered). But once upgraded you can’t undo it without a complete wipe of the drive. In the case of Mojave All internal boot drive are converted now! I have not found a way to prevent it.

APFS is very drive intensive unlike HFS+ In addition, SATA interface dialog is limited in its queueing (only has four) unlike PCIe/NVMe which not only being a faster I/O also has a very deep queue 16/32 depending on the lane width.

So the simple answer is older SATA based systems should stay with Sierra (HFS+) and as High Sierra has issues! I don’t recommend it (which is why you want to stick with Sierra), Mojave is by far better as a MacOS on PCIe/NVMe SSD’s!

As far as external drives… None of the OS’s alter them magically (unlike HS & M does on the internal boot at the time of upgrade). But if you are trying to boot up with an external drive which is using an older OS than you have on your system you can encounter issue of not being able to access your internal drive as the external boot drives OS may not have the needed means to read/write to the APFS file system.

If you take out your internal drive hoping to recover its data to a Windows or Linux system neither have the ability currently to access APFS! Windows does have a driver you can buy from either MS or 3rd parties to access HFS+ drives.

OK lets get back to your USB port issues. Some devices require a driver by the device vendor to work. Mojave is the last MacOS to support 32bit apps and drivers. You’ll want to review your apps and drivers to get newer versions or just remove them when you jump to Catalina this fall.

I would recommend getting one of these: USB-A & USB-C power meter which will offer both voltage and current draw.

If the ports are working from a power perspective I would suspect your logic board has issues. As no matter what MacOS you are using the OS as well as Disk Utility should have no issues accessing FAT16 or 32, NTFS or exFAT external drives.

As you didn’t tell us what the device is you are having problems please tell us.

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Hi Dan, I am unable to use anything with the exception of a wired keyboard and mouse. I have tried external HDDs, wireless mice, a joystick, USB thumb drives, and all do not work. I have a gut feeling that it has something to do with the current draw difference between the devices, but I doubt that a wireless mouse receiver would be trying to pull more power than a backlit wired keyboard. I am an electronics tech, but my mac knowledge is rather limited.. Thanks for your help!

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Are you able to get the in-line power meter I noted in my answer?

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