WD Passport 80Gb drive sometimes fails to mount

Hi,
Running an iBook G4 with an 80Gb Western Digital passport USB-powered drive, occasionally I'll plug the drive in and it will fail to mount. The power light on the drive is on, but there is no activity. Most of the time, the drive will mount OK virtually as soon as it's plugged in, so it's not an issue with power.
The other USB port is used for an external mouse, occasionally a small hub.
Usually the only workaround for this is to leave the drive plugged in for a number of hours, after which it "magically" appears.
Surely there must be a simple answer to this one. I'm more than happy to go into the OS and sort this out if needed, so if anyone can shed any light on this I'd appreciate it.
Thanks,
JF
iBook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Have purchased four of those puppies. First 2 went back to Costco. My desktop PC (WinXP-SP2, 3 GHz Intel) couldn't see them. Bought another for son with ancient Dell. No problem. BTW, same situation w/ Shuffle; invisible to mine, OK w/ his. Bought 4th WD-80 for brand new iBook G4/12 last week. So far, so good.
Last wk assembled extra pocket drive using Fujitsu 40/4800/2.5" drive. Noticed nameplate rating at 550mA (if memory serves). USB is supposed to be maxed at 500 mA per port. The case came w/ USB hydra cable to draw power from 2 USB ports. Didn't work at all w/ my desktop PC, nor w/ only one USB port on iBook connected; but OK w/ cable connected to both USB ports for extra power. Am now using a separate wall-wart (5 vdc, 2200 mA) to power both drives.
My understanding is that the firewire port is good for about 1500 mA. Just bought a USB/Firewire case for the Fujitsu. Research still under way on this.

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