My Book Elite does not work

I just bought a My Book Elite external hard drive 1 TB. If I leave the machine for any period of time it will turn off.  Then if open the software on my computer and press the start backup button under the backup tab it will not work i.e. I push it and nothing happens, no sign that the drives are working on the backup.

The drive will “work”  if I unplug the drive, restart the computer then re connect the drive.  When I say work I mean that  on the backup tab it shows a number of files in my computer and O files in the drive. 

I am trying to backup my data for the first time. I installed the latest update when I first connected the drive.

I am using a xp sp 3 on a dell inspiron 1520 with 2.0 GB of Ram.

Thank  you for any help

Thread moved to WD External Drives: My Book for PC.

The WD My Book Elite has a Sleep Timer feature enabled by default; have you tried changing the configuration under “Set Up Drive”?