Your problem is the drive, not the Powerbook. The USB specification only allows for 0.5 amps MAX one a single port. Only low power drives can use this adapter, as most use something like 0.6-1.2 amps, at spin-up anyway. If you got the same drive to work on a different computer, the hub or adapter you were using had VERRY sloppy power management. That is why most USB 2.5" adapters use a pigtail cable to siphon more power from other ports. Many of these adapters have a way to use a PSU with them, contact your manufacture to see if they offer one.
“An engineer explained to us that hundreds of ear impressions were gathered in the name of research, and while each one obviously boasted its own unique shape and size, one single characteristic remained uniform across the board: the entrance into the ear canal is not a perfect circle, it's an oval.”
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What you really want is this neat USB-to-IDE adapter:
http://www.usbgeek.com/prod_detail.php?prod_id=0208
but note that the 2.5" side unfortunately won't work on a laptop that does not provide adequate power via USB *cough*PowerbookG4*cough*
Your problem is the drive, not the Powerbook. The USB specification only allows for 0.5 amps MAX one a single port. Only low power drives can use this adapter, as most use something like 0.6-1.2 amps, at spin-up anyway. If you got the same drive to work on a different computer, the hub or adapter you were using had VERRY sloppy power management. That is why most USB 2.5" adapters use a pigtail cable to siphon more power from other ports. Many of these adapters have a way to use a PSU with them, contact your manufacture to see if they offer one.