External USB drive with 3000 N100

Hi,
Good to be here - first post!
Needing more capacity I bought a Seagate FreeAgent Go 2.5 inch 120GB drive that draws its power from the computer using two USB ports.
I could not get this to work at all - it seemed be a hardware issue with the drive: it made a bleeping sound and was not detected by the computer. It also seriously upset the Lenovo and I had to do a hard reboot by disconnecting the battery, after which it ran normally (but the Seagate still didn't work at all).
I then connected the Seagate to my desktop PC with the same (negative) result.
So, was the Seagate dead from the word go? Or was there a power issue with the Lenovo that killed it?
I've checked that my Lenovo has the latest BIOS, and all its WinXP Pro updates are up to date. What success, or otherwise, have others had with portable external drives with the 3000 N100?
Best wishes

Thanks to all for their suggestions. The final outcome was a bit of a surprise - it works! Depending upon which USB ports you plug into (this drive, like many other portable ones) uses two USB ports to supply extra power). It would appear that the Lenovo uses "some" power from the USB for internal devices - the built-in webcam being one. Examining the USB ports in Device Manager shows which ports are "used", although I confess the information is not easy to interpret. It looks like this drive needs the full 1 amp (2 x 500mA) from the two ports. On the 3000 N100, using the two ports on the right, nearest the front of the PC, seems do do the trick.
The same applied to my desktop - the two ports I plugged into originally shared a common 500mA supply and that's why the drive didn't work. Again, finding two "independent" ports did the trick.
So it might mean that the Lenovo is a bit marginal in regard to supplying power from the USB ports

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