External HDD just won't fly on USB... (and other random rants)

Hi there Apple lovers and problem solvers!
I have an external drive that can connect via firewire AND usb 2.0. The drive runs fine on the firewire but whenever I plug it into the USB I immediately get the alert message "USB Over Current Notice, A USB device is currently drawing too much power. The hub it is attached to will be deactivated".
I am trying all sorts of things. I purchased an i-rocks USB hub that is self powered and still, no cigar.
If I were using the storage device just for backup, I would be happy going via firewire, but since I am using this device for faster realtime audio recording and movie making, I would like to run via USB 2.0. My understanding is that USB 2.0 generates faster test results than the Firewire 1394 and I would like to know for myself and not be limited to the Firewire.
I'm a bit dissapointed because I upgraded from my 17" powerbook to the 24" iMac as I was having USB issues thinking these same USB issues wouldn't haunt me in a desktop machine and yet here I am again, dealing with these same problems. Whats the problem? Why can a PC user plug in my drive into a USB and it fires up no problem? Why is my USB always inferior or lacking the guts to do the core stuff I need to do. I love apple, the interface is great... but I spend way too much time fiddling with the odd issue like USB circuits that can't handle the juice or commit to doing what they just can't achieve. Whats the solution here?
I'm on Leopard and I upgraded over the top of Tiger (which ppl tell me was a no no). Is there going to be a fix that will correct the apparent problems that are caused by upgrading to leopard from tiger instead of a clean install? Ever since the upgrade my USB shorts out... for example, when the CPU is a bit intensive, like flying between expose, widgets and an animating finder window, its like the USB shorts out and my mouse will flick around the screen... it makes me want to downgrade back to tiger. What do I do?????? Is there an update to fix this coming anytime soon?
Kind regards,
Robert Norris, Apple convert and previous apple preacher who has converted an army of pc users to apple. Please help me stay a happy customer.

Hi cosmicbdog
Humm..(just checking) I hope you don't have it connect FireWire AND USB at the same time? Have you tried a different USB cord perhaps that one has a short, or some other device is also drawing on the bus.
Have a look at "USB compared with FireWire" in the following article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usb#USBcompared_withFireWire
Also have a look at this "USB Device Troubleshooting" article:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58033
I installed 10.5 over 10.4.11 with no issues what so ever, only lost a couple of small unsupported third party App's.
Have you run Disk Utility / Repair Disk Permissions sense upgrading? note: 10.5.. repair disk permissions hangs on less than a min. for a short time so be patient and let it finish.
http://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=3810
Dennis

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