Jim,

It is not the cable. Computers have multiple USB ports, they all look the same, but they have different capabilities. I'll bet that you have a USB 2.0 external drive and that it is now plugged into a USB 1.0 port. If you have USB ports that are not being used, try plugging the external drive into the other ports to see if it works faster. You need to look at the Users Guide provided with your PC to determine which USB ports are 2.0 or 1.0.