Maxtor External HD error, it doesn't work!

i'm severly confused right now.

i bought a maxtor onetouch III USB2.0. I plugged it into my ibook g4 (os x 10.3.9) and it recognized it but i couldn't open it. so i went online and found drivers from the manufacturer. installed them and nothing happened. when i plugged it in again it failed to be found.

i took it to my mac guru (i've only been a mac user since december) and he plugged it into his ibook g4 (os x 10.4.?) and it found it. he couldn't write on it however, so he reformatted it, and i believe it worked with his computer. it was still never found on mine when i plugged it in.

recently, i upgraded to 10.4 and it still won't be found. i plugged it in and left it while i looked for answers and it made me restart, i believe that's called a kernal error. ???. i was thinking maybe i could delete or uninstall the drivers, but i have no idea how.

terribly frustrating, any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

mine won't recognize it. and the usb ports work with my flash drive. and we tried reformatting it with the my friend.