Technology Forum

Hello, I saw that another poster had this issue about 3 months back, but his solution involved reformatting his machine and losing all of his work... here is my situation: 1) I received the new Western Digital My Passport Essential external drive 160gb, but I'm having troubles "installing" it on my XP desktop. On my second desktop, it works fine (plug and play). 2) When I plug the hard drive in via USB - it recognizes it and a balloon pops up saying its detected a USB device but then Windows loads up the "Found New Hardware Wizard" - and it cannot install the HDD because the drivers are on the drive itself. 3) Opening up My Computer and Disk Manager shows that the computer cannot see the drive. It appears in Device Manager as "Other USB Device." 4) WD Tech Support sent me a power boost (Dual USB) cable. I don't believe that that's the issue. 5) Per the prior post, I have uninstalled all USB ports, and then had Windows reinstall all the USB 2.0 drivers. Same result once i plus in the passport. Any help at all would be appreciated. I could reformat the machine, but then...how do i back it up without this HDD?! :sigh: