Corrupt passport? computer won't read HDD

I just got a My Passport Essential 500gb, and plugged it in to my Dell Inspiron 6400 (running XP SP 3). It runs for a minute and then brings up a blue screen starting with text saying

" A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

BAD_POOL_HEADER … etc"

I then have to turn off the laptop by holding down the power button as I can’t do anything else after that. I have a photo taken of all the text which I started above.

Is this a power problem of the hard drive, or is it possibly corrupted? It works on a computer with Vista, I haven’t been able to try any other XP computers.

I very much appreciate any help! Thanks

Hi,

 This is a USB Power problem.Dell Inspirons shut down if a USB device takes in more than 750mA.

A power booster USB cable should fix this.

Also check for any Virtual CD ROM mounting software like Daemon or Sonic that could be conflicting with the

WD Smartware Virtual partition.

ShiV

Hi

I had the same problem and same screen appeared. Since then however, I cannot view videos from the internet (You Tube for instance). The images play in slow motion and sound too.

How can I restore this

I have uninstalled the Portable HD SW.

I have a Toshiba Equium on XP

Cn you help me at least know how to restore the sound and image

thanks

I have just had an identical problem.

From speaking to WD it appears that the WD Smartware is not so smart after all.

It clashes with various existing CD/DVD burning systems such as Roxio, Sonic and, maybe, Nero.

Sadly, WD gives no warning of this and just gives the BSOD and the BAD_POOL_HEADER message.

I used to think highly of WD but this is a major problem - it has just cost me about 20 times what I paid for the 500gb Essential that I was trying to back up on to!