Expert: Ricardo Agudelo - 10/22/2009

Question
Hi,

My wife has a seven year old Dell desktop, which serves her needs.

The manual days that the USB inputs are on the back.

Wanting to back up the data on a flash drive, and finding the back of the computer difficult to get to, I bought a cable with a USB male on one end and a USB female on the other. This way I'd only have to get to the back once, After that the USB female would be easy to get to.

However, when I got to the back of the computer I found that the USB inputs wouldn't take the USB male on the cable. The inputs look like they take the sort of modular plug you use for phones.

Question: Seven years ago, did USB cables use modular plugs? If so, is there a USB-to-modular cable?

I called Dell about this, but lots of luck getting them to answer

Many thanks for any help you can offer.

Steve

Answer
Hi Steve,

To the best of my knowledge, USB connectors never used modular plugs or jacks, so there isn't any adapter you may buy. In most old computers, the USB ports are near the  keyboard and mouse connectors. If not, they may have them in an expansion slot. Can't be of more help since you don't provide the computer model.
You may find more information about the USB interface at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus

Pay attention to the pictures. What your drive needs is the A plug shown in the first picture to the right, and scrolling down there is another picture of how an A jack looks Keep scrolling down and you will see other connector types used with the USB interface. It is unlikely you will find those in an old DELL box.

Hope it helps,
Ricardo