External USB Hard Drive

I've been having no luck for almost two weeks getting my DV8210 to recognize an external self powered USB enclosure with a hard drive. The USB ports all work fine. The lappy recognizes the external enclosure, but says the device may not work properly. And it doesn't.

I first tried connecting two drives that were working fine in a desktop in a working enclosure. Nothing. So I bought a new enclosure and tried that. Nothing. I bought a new hard drive. Nothing.

I really need to back up my lappy and could also use the extra storage but I'm stumped as to why I can't get it to work. It's either a really simple or really complicated solution.

The enclosure is a Venus DS3. All three drives ar WD, two 160's with data and a brand new 250. I've gotten the latest drivers for it. XP Home sees the USB Mass Storage device every time I connect it. But it then says the device may not work properly. I can see it in the device manager, unfortunately with the yellow ballon.

HP Techs had me confirm I am the administrator, and check some values in the registry. Both checked out fine.

I guess I need to start from scratch but I'm not sure where that is. I have a 2 week old lappy with important business data that I cannot archive. Any ideas?

The Venus DS3 has a separate power cable.

I bought a second self powered USB enclosure which also yielded the same results ans was subsequently returned.

If I still had my desktop, I probably wouldn't be asking.

I no longer have the desktop. I have all three drives from the desktop. Two were internal, one was external USB. None have been recognized by the laptop. My original enclosure gets recognized as a USB Mass Storage Device, but "may not work properly", as did the second enclosure I bought and returned.

If it was only the drives from the desktop not being recognized, I'd still be stumped. The fact the the new WD 250 got the same treatment is what bothers me.

Got 'em already.

Prior to posting here, I tried 1) letting XP do it's thing, 2) the CD that came with enclosure and 3) these drivers, presumably the same ones that came with the enclosure. Nothing has worked.

I appreciate you still thinking, ideas. I've tried everything I can think of.

Every other USB device works fine. I have two ports. The 1st port has an 8 port self powered hub attached which only has a printer and joystick attached, and the 2nd port in which I'm trying to connect an external HD.

In case anyone is watching this at home, the same USB port that I want to connect the external USB hard drive to has no problem with my memory stick reader in the same port. The memory stick reader in the laptop is too difficult to use so I still use my SanDisk reader.

I plug the reader into the USB port, it gets instantly recognized as a USB mass Storage device, just like the external enclosure. Unlike the enclosure, it works fine.

I tried a suggestion from a newsgroup forum to uninstall all of the USB hubs and then reboot and let XP find all of them. It was suggested that this would clear up any driver issues. It didn't work either. Still, when I plug in the external enclosure, I get the same message that a new USB Mass Storage Device was found.... and then after 20-30 secs or so I get the follow up message than it may not work correctly. The device manager shows the yellow exclamation point.

I wish I knew whether the drive(s) or the enclosure(s) were at fault. I've tried combinations of the two enclosures and three hard drives. Weird.

As far as jumper settings, I've tried master, cable select, and slave. Which setting should I use for a single USB drive?

Yes, its a USB 2.0 enclosure, actually Firewire as well.

I'd like to think any needed system board drivers are installed, as the lappy is less than a month old. How can I verify?

I didn't have the latest BIOS. I flashed it to a more recent version, but still no luck with the external enclosure.