Hi I need some help with a extarnal enclosure!

[goofy00]

hi, I've got a bit of a problem , and I'm not even sure, if I'm in the right place for it, but anyhow....I bought a external inclosure for my ide hardrive...but I hvae no idea how to make it work...when I plug in the usb port..it reads it as a mass storage device, but I can't use it stll....even though it was formatted....

however, when I use the firewire port it has, it detects it fine...anyone know why this is? I can't figure it out for the life of me. It's not theat big of a deal..but I'd like to be able to use it with computers without a firewire port..so if any one can help...or point me in the direction of help...it would be very appreciated.

thanks

[pipemanid]

Some quick questions:
What OS?
Motherboard?
Does it show up in Explorer?

[goofy00]

The operating system is windows xp, and the mother board is, well I'm not really sure, but I think it's I've tried it in my buddies toshiba laptop as well and it won't detect it via usb.
and no it doesn't show up in explorer bar