PC crashes whenever I plug in an external HDD

Need some advice if anyone has dealt with this before:

Every time I plug in an external hard drive via Universal Serial bus, the whole computer freezes up instantly. The only way out is holding down the power button.
The drives themselves work perfectly fine on other machines.

My only workaround is plugging them in while the PC is still powered off. They work okay for a bit after the system boots up, but then I can't even safely disconnect them because the "safely remove hardware" icon doesn't even show up. If I try to unplug them manually, the system crashes. So, I'm stuck restarting every single time.
Sometimes they just vanish from "My Computer" mid-session too—I can hear them spinning, but I can't access any files.

I've tested five different drives (both the big ones with external power and the small 2.5" ones), and they all act the exact same way.

Other USB gear works totally fine, including thumb drives.

Thanks in advance!

Look, just start by grabbing the chipset drivers directly from the motherboard manufacturer's site—which board are we actually talking about here? Also, what version of Windows are you running? Did this whole mess just start out of nowhere? Like, were the drives working perfectly fine until suddenly they weren't?

It’s a Dell Inspiron, model MS2175—motherboard is Acpi pnp0c02 1

Running Windows XP.

Everything just went sideways out of nowhere.

The drives were fine before, and they still work perfectly on other machines.

I grabbed the Mobile Intel 915 GM express chipset driver from the Dell site using my serial number, so I know it’s the right one. Is there any real risk in installing this?

Nah, you’ve got nothing to worry about—it’s pretty much foolproof. If things don't kick into gear, just pop open the Admin tools -> Comp Management -> Control panel -> Admin tools -> Comp Management and head over to the Device Manager. Scroll down to those Universal Serial bus controllers at the bottom, expand the list, and just wipe out everything sitting in there. Once you've uninstalled them, give the machine a quick reboot—the system will handle reinstalling all those USB drivers automatically.

Unfortunately, installing those new drivers didn't fix a thing.
It's the exact same mess as before.

Should I try something else?

Yeah, what I was getting at with my second point—the one involving the device manager.

I gave that a shot. First, my computer completely froze up during boot, and I had to hard reboot it a few times just to get it moving. Now it’s finally reading the drives, but nothing has changed—the problem is still there.

Look, just pop open the Comp Management -> Control panel -> Admin tools and head over to Disk Management—can you actually see the drives listed there? If they're showing up, try right-clicking the drive and changing the drive letter.

My computer just froze solid right after I changed the drive letter, so now I have to force a hard reboot.

I’d honestly just try a fresh install of Windows XP and go through the drivers—if that doesn't do the trick, then we're looking at a hardware issue. It could be anything, really... maybe those USB ports aren't pulling enough juice to power the drives properly. I'm tapped out on ideas, honestly. 🙂

Benjamin King2, thanks for all the tips!

I was actually a bit nervous about formatting, so I’ll tackle that once I have a free moment.🙂
Right now, I can't touch anything because I'm buried under a mountain of urgent work.

But what if it’s actually the power supply?
My PC gets all wonky and restarts on me sometimes whenever I plug in a USB drive.

Got any bright ideas on how I should go about swapping out a laptop power supply?