Recently I have purchased an external hard drive (40GB) in an external casing. This would connect to the computer with USB and draws powers from the USB itself. Its make is HITACHI and is USB 2.0 Compliant. I have 3 Computers and a laptop. the problem occurs mainly with the first computer which is USB 2.0 Enabled. the remaining two are USB 1.1 Enabled on which the drive works fine, a little slow though. on the laptop the drive works fine which is also a USB 2.0 Enabled. But Giving a Error "The Device 'Generic Volume' Cannot be Stopped as it is still being accessed by a process" (something of this sort) some times. Now the problem, with the first computer which is : PENTIUM 4, 2.4 GHz, 256 MB RAM and 40GB internal Seagate Drive, Running DUAL BOOT Win XP SP2 and WIN 98. As soon as I attach the external hard drive to the port, the drive starts making a noise (as though it reading the hard drive continuosly), and the computer freezes, giving access to only those applications which are still running and movement of mouse. As soon as i pull the drive back the computer is back to normal. this is seen both in Win XP SP2 and Win 98 on the same computer. But The drive does not make any kind of noise on Laptop or the other two computers and works fine there. please help Thanks Akshay

This drive must be a 2.5" model. The current to run the drive itself is pulled from the USB port. Each USB controller serves TWO USB ports. Maybe the USB port you are connecting the drive to is underpowered because of another device connected to the same controller. The twin ports will be side by side on the MBoard. Try temporarily removing any devices from the other port. Hubs can cause the same issues. What file format is on the external drive and on each of the partitions of the Win98/ XP computer that has issues? Is the Win98 computer Win98SE?

I agree with Othehill.

Thanks for the reply. You are right the hard disk is a 2.5" model. Well I don't have any other device connected to USB port, either on the same controller or on the other, while working with the hard disk. Initially when I purchased the hard disk, it was preformatted to NTFS. But I reformatted it on the other computer to FAT32 using Norton Partition Magic 8.0. Hard disk has issues on both Win98 and Winxp. it is not detected, freezes the computer and makes a continuous access noise. Windows 98 is Win98SE. One question : regarding the power issue. The USB Cable supplied, is a Y-Cable , It has Two USB Ports at one end, and one at other end. (All the ports are male USB ports) I have Only Connected One to computer and one to Disk. Does This make any difference? I am a little worried about connecting two USB ports on the computer. Thanks regards Akshay

The purpose MUST be to get more power to run the drive itself. I'm not much of a fan of 2.5" drives. Try connecting the second cable to the port sistered to the one now in use. Or read the instructions accompanying the drive.

Well Should I Put in the other USB port as well. Because there is nothing such mentioned in the manual. a little worried. please advise bye Akshay

Are both ends identical? If the manual doesn't cover that issue you may want to Email the tech support for that drive. I have no experience with USB powered external drives. I have a powered enclosure that houses a 3.5" IDE drive.