Thank you for the article, I have not seen that.
The drive that I have does not use any software packages or utilities.. its just a blank drive.
I have tried the drive on both USB 3.0 ports and both USB 2.0 ports on the system, none of which show any differences.
The drive itself does run slightly warm, though not HOT pre se.
As far as keeping the drive on one system, my Iomega drive has always run on W7 since i bought it, so that very well might be the case, but I'm not entirely sure. It seems to me like a "USB Mass Storage" driver should work pretty much anywhere...

The hidden devices option is showing TONS of drivers. Im not entirely sure which is which, though I did remember something...

About two weeks ago, I bought a drawing tablet for use with my laptop. When I went to use it, it would connect, and then a few seconds later, would disconnect... and disconnect... and disconnect... It would simply keeping playing the "Device removed" sound over and over and over again, and the device itself would appear for about half a second in the "Devices" window. What was stranger, is that it was showing itself listed as a mouse even AFTER I installed the driver from the manufacturer. I knew something was wrong when I went to draw with it and the pressure-sensitivity was not working...

Anyway, I found that driver with the hidden view you mentioned, and deleted it. Im not sure if that might have any effect on the current problem, but ill be sure to test it out later.

Also, I have purchased the Toshiba HDD I linked in an earlier post... just in case!

~Cobalt