Need Usb External Hard Drive Help Asap

welcome to tsf
how is the external formatted?

I'm not sure how the hardrive is formatted? First of all, how can i tell? and second now i can't get the hardrive to recognize on any computers. It dings in when it gets plugged in. Then it wont my under my computer. I then go into the device manager. Find it there it has an exclamation point under it. Then i uninstall it. Seconds after that it dings in again and says it found a USB mass storage device. Seconds after that. It says an error occured and couldnt finish the installation process. and the device may not be working properly. I cant get any further than that. Because i cant even partition the drive because it doesnt show up under Disk Managment. Im puzzeled and lost. Please Help

but it works fine on your dell?

Unplug ALL USB devices.
Open Device Manager.
View, Show Hidden Devices.
Uninstall all devices under USB Controllers.
Uninstall all devices under Storage Volumes. Say no to any reboot prompts until you are finished. Also, if a Storage Volume doesn't uninstall, ignore it and move to the next one.
If you have a yellow ? with unknown devices, uninstall all of the entries there as well.

When this is done, reboot TWICE.

Reconnect the USB devices and see if they're recognized properly.

I did all of what you wrote and said to do, USB drive still didnt recognize? any other suggestions?

cant think of anything else except trying another jumper setting on the external which means opening up the case. i seen some instances where the jumper removed solved it. but of course, that means taking it out. :4-dontkno

good luck