Problem connecting external hard drive to laptop

[glock16261]

I've recently purchased a 160gb Maxtor Diamondmax plus 9 external hard drive in an unbranded casing.

I've used it on my PC which is running Win XP Pro, has an Athlon XP1600 processor and 1024mb of RAM, by connecting it through a USB port.

I've now tried to connect it to a Sony Vaio laptop which is running Win 2000 Pro, has an Intel PII 350mHz processor and 196mb of RAM, by connecting it through a four port PCMCIA USB adaptor.

However, when I connect it up, the laptop freezes and the same thing seems to happen with the external hard drive as it clicks and whirls a few times and then the light indicating that the hard drive is in use on the front comes on and stays on.

Consequently I can't get anything to happen as even Cntrl/Alt/Del doesn't even work.

I'm away from any PC at the moment so I can't check to see if the drive is faulty. It is second hand but was only manufactured in Dec 2003 so I shouldn't really be having any problems with it.

I'm not sure if this will have an effect on the issue but there is a faulty IEEE 1394 Bus Host Controller in the device manager. Subsequent to the external hard drive problem, I have managed to install an unsigned device driver for it but to no avail and the 1394 device is still unuseable.

Help!

[2k dummy]

IEEE 1394 is firewire. Are you sure you are not trying to connect a firewire device to a usb port, and that you are using the right cable?

[glock16261]

Thanks for the help but yes, I am using a USB 2.0 external hard drive and a USB 2.0 cable both which came in the same package, together with a USB 2.0 Cardbus which is plugged into one of the two PCMCIA slots.

I've actually managed to resolve the Firewire problem today but it hasn't cured the problem.

[2k dummy]

If the laptop has a USB port, try connecting directly to it. Most USB 2.0 devices are backward compatable to USB 1.1. The transfer rate will be considerably lower but it should work. You might also check the cardbus manufacturers site to see if special drivers are needed for OS other than XP.

[glock16261]

Thanks but the built in USB port is faulty which is why I'm having to use the adaptor and that works fine with everything else I put in it.