WD "My Passport Essential" 250GB not recognized on Toshiba 1800

Hello guys! Someone can help me?

I bought this disc and I`m deeply disappointed. No easy help anywhere... WD official pages are of no help either.

When I plug it into my Toshiba it`s not recognized, but led light is on and disc is somehow spinning and than waiting and spinning again and so on. I have WinXP SP3 and also Linux, like dual-boot, but it behaves same way on both systems. I went to the shop where I bought the drive and they made me fool - just plug it into their PC and than it showed up. After that I plug it into my PC at work and it showed up alright, but there were some files infected by viruses!!! Also no files indicated by maker appeared, just empty folders.

And I have to say that I have laptop bought in Japan with a Japanese version of Windows. Maybe it matters... f. knows.

After investigating the Net, I see there are two possibilities. My Win drivers being not up-to date (but I`m updating regularly!!!) or there could be some issues with power supply (it doesn`t have it`s own, bad...).

I`m really pissed of with these things and don`t know what to do. Why nobody worn me in advance about these traps, they just take good money for old stuff here in Czech and that`s all! I know my laptop is pretty old one, but I didn`t have any problems like this one until now.

Pls help me, whatever advice it can be, and mail me at karelvlcek_at_hotmail.com. I would appreciate any advice. I hate fighting with unwilling shop guys, but I`ll do it definitely if there is no choice...

Thanks a lot and have a nice day!

Karel.