Vista - Freecom 500gb ExHDD not recognised

Hi everyone............I am a total newcomer..........as of today........so please be gentle with me.Anyway love this forum so here goes.

Just took delivery of a Cube247 base unit with Vista Ultimate64-bit installed.
I have a freecom 500gb 3.5" External Hard Drive that after plugging it in isn't being recognised.I thought this was a Plug & Play thing but do I need to be looking for some applicable drivers ?
I would appreciate any help on this as I am quite keen to be backing up to my Freecom as soon as.

Hi, michael48elton, and welcome to the forums.

What type of connection are you using? Do you have any other devices that use that connection? If so, can you verify that those devices work in that same port?

Hi John...sorry I have been a while but just got in.
I have been connecting my Ex HDD Freecom into a frontal USB port.I have been using same USB for my backing up to a flash drive and it works fine
Previously this same HDD has been working fine on my other desktop with XP Pro 32-bit OS.Is this the curse of the 64-bit ? OS or something stupid I am doing..........not unheard of !!!!
If there is anything else I can give you just shout.

Kind regards
Mike.

It really shouldn't be - but it also depends if you needed to install software for the drive itself, such as backup software or something....

Check Device manager *with the drive connected* and see if it is recognizing a device that is failing to start....

Looks like you are on the right track.Before I cconnected the HDD I ran the Freecom CD with 2 pieces of Software for backing up.Straight after the first was installed a message came up saying the drivers for this were NOT digitally signed and to uninstall...........
It does show up on Divice Manager with the telltale Yellow marker.
It says " This device is not configured properly"
After pressing to find driver it has informed me that Microsoft cannot find drivers and suggests I visit Freecom website to get drivers if possibe.I couldn't find anything earlier but will try again.
Isn't there a way you can get round this hardware not having digitally signed drivers ?