USB Harddisk will not format using DU under 10.2.8

Question

This is a very very strange problem ( and might be a bug of Jaguar ) which I am not able to solve on my own :
First - my Powermac is working and behaving like it should, no Hardware or Software issues at all. I have upgraded it with a Belkin USB PCI-card ( 1.1 ) so it now has 4 ports total, and all are working with my Hardware like Headsets,Scanner,Printer,Mouse,Keyboard and so forth.
The OS is Mac OS 10.2.8 with all Apple Software Updates which were available. The OS is working excellent and I do not wish to upgrade it to a newer version, I am absolutely happy with what Jaguar and my .mac membership / ilfe apps has to offer.
I have a external Harddisk ( laptop size 2,5 inch, 80 GB ) it is a SAMSUNG MPH80 (80GB) inside an external USB case. The disk was formatted as HFS+ under Mac OS 10.1.5 and it was usable and accesable under that OS like one would expect it. No drivers, just works.
Because no modern apps, especially ilife04 and Browsers were available for 10.1.5 I bought OS X 10.2 and very pleased with the new features.
So, Now I have Jaguar and the thing isn't working at all - everytime I plug the Disk in a USB port on my PM I keep getting the error somehow like this "You have inserted an medium which OS X cannot read, would you like to initialize it ?"
I checked it on a Windows XP PC with MacDrive installed and the Disk is mounting, so no hardware fault, also like I said under 10.1.5 it was serving well. Now I thought ok, maybe Jaguar uses some newer HSF standard, let's initialize it like the MAc told me to.
Disk Utility opens, shows the Drive on the left pane, I click it and say partition or erase ( doesn't matter what ..I tried all options ) - It begins, but stops ( "hangs" ) at the point "creating partition map" . Disk Utility recognizes the Disk, it even tells me it is a Samsung, at the time it tries to format the disk, all LEDs on the case of my disk are NOT blinking ( they do when read/write operation is in progress ) .
I later took the disk back to another Mac with 10.3.9 on it, and it mounts on the Desktop .
So : 10.1.5 is able to use it,XP with Macdrive can use it, 10.3.9 can, but 10.2.8 not on not one single USB port ?!
Any any hint is welcomed, I am down with my nerves on this subject. Is this a known bug maybe ?
The filesystem is not the point or if I have to partition it in some strange ways, I only wish to have a backup of my files,itunes music and photos handy in case the mac dies one day or the OS has to be reinstalled. You know, only to be safe.
Again : Do not tell me to replace Jaguar with Panther, I don't have it and am not willing to buy it.
Thanks everybody.

Answer 1

Thanks for answering.
Maybe I should have explained it better - if I format it using another Mac, it will again tell me under 10.2.8 that it has to be initialized.. and there we start from the beginning.
By the way : the box for the external case explicit says "for Mac OS 8.6 and higher".. so does my Belkin PCI card say "Mac compatible" . I just visited the maker "LC Power" to see if they have drivers or whatever, they don't.
What came to my mind when I read the 10.2.8 Update and what it does, I see "it adds USB 2.0 support" - maybe that is the feature I run into trouble ?
You see, my Powermac has only USB 1.0 ports ( including the extra 2 ) - and the external disk is backwards-compatible obviously. Maybe I should reinstall OSX 10.2 and go only up to 10.2.7 and see if that changes that behaviour ?