hi, i am borrowing my friends 500gb external hdd to transfer stuff from my new computer to my old one for backup, but for some reason when i plug it in, i click on a program and the computer doesnt respond, but if i take out the usb for the hdd, it starts responding again.
It also doesn't show up in My Computer, although i had device manager up before i plugged it in and it showed up in there.

I already have to hard drives in my computer, do you rekon this could be the problem or it is it something else.

The computer is about 6yrs old, but i have added an extra 180gb hdd and that works fine.

What could it be?

Regards, Sam.

1. What operation systems are your computers running?

2. Is your friend's HDD formatted?

im using xp pro, and it is formatted.

You refer to your "old computer" and your "new computer", then you refer to "the computer". Have your tried connected the external drive to each computer? Does the external drive work on one computer and not the other (if so which one does it not work with?) or does it not work on either of the computers?

yes it works on my new computer, but for some reason my friend formatted it to fat32, and both computers are ntfs.

Do you have another USB device such as a mouse or a keyboard?
If so, try the other device on the same port as you connected the HDD.
In other words, let's see if the USB port is working.