External Hard Drive Issues..

So about 11/21/08 my Seagate 250GB USB External Hard Drive began having issues..immediately upon plugging it in, it is not safe to unplug "Windows can't stop your 'Generic volume' device because it is in use. Close any programs or windows that might be using the device, and then try again later." I've never had this issue with any drives before, tried changing letter drive paths thinking maybe it was an autorun.inf issue, etc..nothing has worked. I plugged it into my Desktop on the other hand which is running XP SP3 & it had no problems what so ever. With that, I scanned it with Avast, picking up a few Trojans & removing them. Bring it back to my laptop running Vista Home Premium, and it's just as before. Transfer rates are disgustingly slow. Tried a chkdsk but that froze..I'm running out of ideas:sigh: