I've plugged a portable harddrive in and it's not being recognized. It's a Verbatim USB 320. I am on a Toshiba with Windows 7

Try a different usb port on the computer. Maybe the usb port you are using is bad.

Try the portable drive on another computer and see if it is recognized. If not, the portable drive might be defective.

click start control panel administrive tools ,computer management ,device manager look through all of your devices if you see a yellow question mark?or exclamation mark ! or red x
right click to reinstall drivers or
if you can see your usb but its not working
ports(com&lpt)right click update driver
if your computer came with a motherboard disk the drivers could be on it
sometimes the wires inside the cable will be damaged due to bending or stretching or placing heavy equipment upon the cable,
just replace the cable of the hard disk, when you plugged the external disk drive you got that windows could recognize the USB device change the cable everything should work fine again,
check the USB leads that attach to the motherboard usually red-white-green-black make sure they are securely seated and have no dust build up on them dust will cause static and a lot of unforeseen problems"
hope this helps

Try plugging it on a different USB port, or try another usb cable.

You may want to try to format it from windows management of the discs in NTFS filesystem.
This is because the FAT32 filesystem recognize only a part of the total capacity of your hard disk

the power requirements of the hard drive are too much to run it from the laptop, remove any other usb devices and you will find that it works

This is not really a solution but for information. There is no direct upgrade path from Windows XP to Windows 7. So, unless you have a compatible program installed on your Windows 7 PC, you will not be able to import a backup from your XP PC. (To My Knowledge).

Connect your harddrive to another computer like windows xp then if it is recognize then take data backup . If your harddrive is fine then follow below for laptop. First make sure usb cable connected to harddrive is working fine.
try it in different usb ports.
Press windows key +R key so you can see run then type in run "devmgmt.msc" then press ok so you can see device manager uninstall all usb drivers then it automatic install usb drivers.
then check.
Also you need to change registry for that type in run "regedit" then press ok then you can see registry editor then locate below key.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11 CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
And remove upper filter and lower filter.Then restart computer then check.
Try your harddrive in different computer if it is not recognized on another computer too then your harddrive has internal issue.

Let me know if you need further assistance.
Thanks for using FixYa

It is very possible the voltage on your computer's USB port is not handling the load. I would buy a "powered" USB 2.0 hub, plug it into your computer's usb port and plug the harddrive into the powered hub.

Restart XP and connect e/hd and it should pick it up. Some systems are plain lazy after a while, so manually install it.

I have the same issue, however with my verbatim 500g its ok. i believe it is because the lacie is a desktop external and therefore is compatable with windows xp and 7 alone.
Verbatim is a "portable" external hard drive which makes it compatible with several different systems. I would suggest returning it, I just formatted my old verbatim harddrive and set up mediaasharing. Through my router. You can actually route the lacie harddrive by going to my computer and right click the icon. Next go to share with; advanced settings and allow all. Then when you turn your ps3 on search for media servers... I would suggest to google media server for ps3 to get it all seet up. GOOD LUCK