External drive

[hopalong]

I purchased a Philips external hsrd drive. It works ok with my lap top but wont work my desktop. Both are XP home edition

[fo3nix]

How is it connected? Is it plugged straight into the USB port on your computer, or into a USB hub?

[hopalong]

Its plugged into a USB on my computer

[tellboy]

Are both Computers USB 2.0 ? Older machines have USB1.1 and are too slow for data transfer on external drives but normally as you plug in a warning tells you this.

[hopalong]

thanks tellboy how do I find out what connection I have

[tellboy]

If you go to Control Panel-Click System-Click Hardware-Click Device Manager. At the bottom of the list is Universal Serial Bus Controllers.
if you have USB2 installed,you will see an 'Enhanced' USB host controller present in the Universal serial bus controllers section. If the host controller listed isn't 'Enhanced' then you have USB1

[tellboy]

Just thought. Check your laptop as well you should see Enhanced USB Controller listed as you say this works in your external HDD.
In theory USB 2.0 devices should work on a USB 1.1 socket but in practice you will find that some do not.

[tellboy]

In case I do not check back on this Question. If your Desktop PC is more than 3 or 4 years old it probably will not have USB 2. If you have a spare �10 and a spare PCI slot you can fit a USB2 PCI card with 4 slots. This will sort it out. If your PC is a lot older it may not have PCI slots but the larger ISA slots. No solution as far as I know to those.

[hopalong]

I tryed the USB at the back computer and it worked fine but it didnt work with the USB at the front