I connect my USB hard drive and nothing happens. Here's the output of dmesg:

Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi0 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 2
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
usb 1-2: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
usb 1-2: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
usb 1-2: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
usb 1-2: device not accepting address 2, error -110
usb 1-2: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
usb 1-2: device not accepting address 2, error -110


Why?

Hmm, you haven't really given us much to go on. What version of SUSE are you running (10.0, 9.3 ... newer versions handle USB devices better)? What kernel version do you have (2.6.13-15.7-default ships with SUSE 10.0, newer kernels have fixes for USB drives etc.). Do you have USB 2.0. Have you booted your PC from cold (turned off) with the drive connected?

Im running suse 10.0, and latest kernel version. The USB hard drive enclosure supports USB2.0 but my motherboard supports USB1. Don't think it matters anyway because a friend came a few days ago and plugged in his USB flash memory stick, and we transferred files from/to it, without turning off the pc or rebooting.

I have same problems, think this is related to motherboard support of USB hard disks as i cant access any hdd on an external USB casing, but the same hdd can be used directly on an ide port. I have no problems using a USB thumbdrive.

think i am out of luck as there are no more BIOS updates for my mainboard and this problem occurs on windows2000 as well (havent tried to upgrade to xp).

BTW my motherboard is a gigabyte 7n400pro athlonxp board.

i would be happy to hear any other solutions as well

Any solutions yet?

Some early USB 1 mother boards were pre standard and didn't support all standard USB devices. I had a Compaq 4770 that was like that. May not be your problem but worth a bit of research.