no power to portable DVD player. USB to USB-C

This question was asked before on this community but was not answered properly. I'm trying to attach an Apple portable Disk drive to my new Mac Book Pro using a USB to USB-C adaptor. I'm getting the message USB Accessory Needs Power: Connect "Apple USB SuperDrive" to a USB port on this Mac. Impossible to do so directly as the connector from the disk drive is USB. What gives?