Vista PnP

Okay I have windows vista and i have 2 problems with plug-n-play.

1st i cannot get my usb san disk mini cruizer flash drive to show up on the "my computer" window. i've checked the device manager and it shows it there and that it's drivers are up to date.

2nd i have a 250gb hitachi ide hard drive with a usb controller plugged into a usb port for data storage...not a backup, just storage. and it shows up as "unknown device" on the device manager.

I need to know why i cannot seem to get any usb storage device i plug in to work. any help here would be great...

thanks in advance.

 

i got the 1st porblem resolved on my own...i still need help with the second part though...a quick thought comes to mind, do external drives have to have jumpers establishing slave/master/cs to them for external hd use?