OK it’s a supported filetype (NTFS), so I can only assume that the USB port doesn’t have enough power to run it properly, as with the guy here:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chromebook-central/PZ6NdBzonSU
Does the USB hard drive have a power adapter that plugs into the wall ?
No it doesn’t.
If you plug a USB stick into the Chromebook is it listed in “Files” ?
No another point I have a 1GB RAM chip for your laptop.
It is easy to install this would make it much faster and treble the RAM available.
If your interested contact me via a personal message.
I will try this later Mark. Believe it or not I am on the old laptop right now- the LUG guy got it booted and working!!! I have just finished transferring files from it over to my Maxtor portable HD (that were not already on it). He found that the hard disk on the old laptop is damaged, so it would crash again at some point. Luckily he can put the new hard disk in I had been saving for the Mint netbook (since this is working fine it can wait… it just has a small SSD) and will load another distro on there. What would you recommend for a 2006 laptop? We discussed you tube downloader and you said it wasn’t that good on Peppermints/Mint but it’s working awesome on Peppermint 3. I am thinking longer term- as I need this to work- I do a lot of saving of old tv programmes and music from YT (in case they PM/M stop supporting YT downloader).
Done thanks. 
Yes my USB data stick works great Mark. ;D
Okay, if it can see the USB stick, but not the USB hard drive it’s got to be one of 3 things
a) The USB HDD or enclosure is dead - unlikely if it works on another PC 
b) The NTFS file system used on the USB HDD isn’t supported by the Chromebook - unlikely, NTFS is a common file system supported by pretty much everything (and listed as supported by ChromeOS).
c) The USB ports of the Chromebook aren’t delivering enough power to the USB hard drive to both spin it up and read it - most likely.
The only remedies for (c) are
i) Get a powered USB hub
ii) You MAY get away with a Y cable … this is a cable that plugs into 2 USB ports on the PC drawing power from each.
Powered hub
http://img.misco.eu/productmedia/htmlimages/cten/LDY/LDY-1/42999.jpg
USB Y Cable
The only other option would be to use the USb stick to transfer stuff to your laptop, then write it to the USB HDD from there … a pain, but an option nevertheless.
I read the other day that NTFS file systems are not readable on Chromebooks. I am doing the latter- saving anything I want for the portable HDs via the USB (using the Mint netbook- the laptop is dead at the moment).
If that’s the case, you have only one option if you want to use the HDD directly … format it with a different file system (such as FAT32 which is probably what the USB stick is using)
BUT … I’d like to see where you read that ?
Directly from Google:
https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/183093?hl=en-GB
File systemsYou can access files on external devices connected to your Chromebook if they use the following types of filesystems:
FAT (FAT16, FAT32, exFAT) HFS+ (read-only on journaled HFS+) ISO9660 (read-only) MTP [b]NTFS[/b] UDF (read-only)</blockquote>
Would formatting the HD mean losing the files on it? Would it still work on the netbook?
I can’t remember where I read it Mark- but many people can’t access their hard drives on Chromebooks- they obviously don’t know what you know.
How would I format it?
Probably best to wait until your laptop is done.
and YES you’ll loose everything on it unless you copy it somewhere else first.
I’d be VERY surprised if NTFS isn’t supported in ChromeOS though … that link I provided is from Google themselves, they should know they authored the OS.
Yes, will wait til the laptop is done and I will do the downloading on that. I can download using savefromnet for now and transfer to the HD via the netbook using the data stick. Well, both my external HDs don’t work in the Chromebook. I can’t understand why they’d need a separate power pack if they would work on that old laptop that was always crashing! the Chromebook is far more powerful, fast with an SSD!
