Vista - Vista 64 issues with western digital HDD

I have tried two different passport drives and get a failed to start error. I tried using a powered USB bus to provide additional power. Anyway I am here obviously no luck in getting an external drive to work. The first drive was a WD2500meb the second was a WD3200meb. Both had the same errors. I read other peoples posts but they were quite old. Below are my guesses as to what is causing the issue... as I replied to that old forum. I have the same issue tested multiple WD drives. from this and other forums i think it may be a 2 fold issue maybe three. 1) Power isn't high enough 2) not compatible with 64bit because the disc is preformatted with fat32. 3) You have a Dell like me and they are software package tards... whats worse is if you are like me with a laptop you will get the bounce around because the manufacturer of the laptop is the responsible party for software issues. Since it is Dell in my case they don't care cause they have my money already and I am outside of my return it period. Anyway just wondering if anyone has found a fix for this?

Add to that I have tried a double port cable and maxtor HDD now still no worky.