USB External Hard Drive

[A Linn]

I am still having problems with my Fantom USB 2.0 External 120 G hard drive. The drive works fine when attatched to my desktop at home and work. When I attatch it to my Pavillion 5385us, the drive will corrupt data. I often get "runtime error" messages and at times I cannot access any data on the drive at all.
I have tried the following:
1. Powered Hub
2. Reinstalled Windows XP Home
3. Updated the Bios

Any other ideas? Is this Laptop incompatable with this type of harddrive? Any help is appreciated.

Al Linn