USB device not recognised

I recently built a portable HDD using a Maxtor 6E040L0 taken from an old laptop. Admittedly I have formatted it via an intel mac, (using all the different options) it works fine on the PC's at work which run XP pro (sp2), when I plug it into my own pc it starts off with the usual 'new hardware detected' then I get 'Hardware ready for use' and finally I see a warning message......'USB device not recognised blah blah blah'.

I've tried searching for a driver for it and all I seem to load is driver search software. The last spanner in the works is that the PC I wish to use it on has no web access so any drivers/programs etc would need to be loaded from a memory stick (which works fine)

thanks in advance.

 

Does it show up under Device Manager and My Computer (or Computer)?

 

try formatting the drive in the computer it is having problems on. My guess is that something is wrong with the way it was formatted on the MAC.

 

Nope! the only time I can see anything of it is in device manager as an unknown device.

I've formatted it several ways the disk utility on my mac and its currently FAT32.

Odd thing is it works on other PC's just not mine

 

It might be a drive letter assignment issue. You could trry this;:
1. Click Start on the taskbar, then right-click My Computer on the desktop or from the Start menu, and then click Manage.
2. Under Computer Management, click Disk Management.
3. In the list of drives in the right pane, right-click the Removable Device and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
4. Click Change, and in the drop-down box, specify a drive letter for the Removable Device, choosing one that is not assigned to the mapped network drives.
5. Click OK, and then click OK again.