USB external drive causes Windows XP Home to freeze?

I have a 200GB Western Digital HD with a USB-to-IDE external enclosure. Everytime when I plug the USB cable into to my Toshiba L25-S119 notebook computer, the Windows XP Home hang/freeze. The following are some information about my computer hardware, OS, and HD:

Computer maker and model: Toshiba Satellite L25-S119

Hardware information (general):

CPU: Intel Celeron M 370 (1.5GHz) 1MB L2, 400MHz FSB

RAM: 768MB (256 + 512) PC4200 DDR2 533MHz SDRAM 1.8V SODIMM

Chipset: ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M Chipset

Southbridge: ATI SB400

Internal HD: 60GB FUJITSU MHV2060AH, 5400RPM, EIDE (ATA-6)

Optical drive: MATS.H.I.TA DVD/CDRW UJDA770

OS and BIOS information:

OS: Windows XP Home with SP2

BIOS: Toshiba v1.80 (12/14/05)

External USB HD: Western Digital 200GB HD (IDE)in NTFS with 2 partitions. (approximately 150 + 50 GB)

External Enclosure: Metal Gear Box with AC-to-DC power supply.

Other information:

The external USB HD works fine with my another two desktop PCs: Windows XP Pro SP2 and Windows 98 SE (with NTFS for Win98 and USB driver). And, it also works perfectly with my friends' Sony and HP notebook computers (Win xp Home).

My first thought was a driver problem. However, I checked the drivers it installed in this notebook were same as my other PCs.

I tried Windows XP Pro SP2 clean installation on this computer, but the problem still occured. Therefore, it is not some problems with the Home edition of Windows XP.

The external enclosure has a DC power supply, so power won't be the problem.

I have tried all my three USB ports. All the three USB ports works fine with my SanDisk 1GB Flash drive.

I did a CHKDSK using my desktop PC, and the disk was fine.

I also uninstalled and reinstalled all the USB and disk drivers, but it still the same.(set DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1 devmgmt.msc)

The only situation that it works with this computer is when I boot the computer from Knoppix Linux CD. So, I guess this is not a hardware problem. How do you guys think? Thanks in advance.

USB external drive causes Windows XP Home to freeze?microsoft net

I discovered a configuration mismatch

CPU: Intel Celeron M 370 (1.5GHz) 1MB L2, 400MHz FSB

RAM: 768MB (256 + 512) PC4200 DDR2 533MHz

The clock frequency of the RAM may not be higher than the clock frequency of the FSB. Every manufacturer of a mainboard with FSB 400MHz would recommend RAM of the types PC2100 or PC2700.

This might not be the reason for your hangs/freezes, but the timing of PC4200 DDR RAMs on a 400MHz FSB is critical anyway.

USB external drive causes Windows XP Home to freeze?microsoft flight simulator internet explorer

Though I am not sure you might want to check the settings on the drive itself. You might need USB 2.0 to run the hard drive. Some older laptop/computers do not have this usb 2.0. If this is the case there are pc slot usb 2.0 connectors available for laptops. I hope this helps. Good luck.
I own a brand new computer, this one does the same thing. I think it is a windows xp issue.
don't write so long questions, thanx anyway, but no time to read it.
WWindow XP has problem with this issue. I have to shut down my system for a while then everything goes fine later.

Dell 700m user.