This was due to an incompatibility between the USB controller and I beleive SuSE Linux, although I am not 100% sure. The drive worked on the controller user RH 7.2, but required moving to another USB controller (the one on the mother board as opposed to an addition card) in order to work with SuSE 8.0.
I fully accept problem MAY be down to the USB controller becoming faulty in the last 4 weeks (since I had RH7.2 installed), but it seemed strange that I was able to burn a CD under RH7.2 before installing SuSE 7.3, and haven't been able to use it since installing 7.3 or upgrading to 8.0.
Hotplug support is a new feature added to Linux generally, basically they decided to lump PCI and USB under one heading 'Hotplug', Cannot remember where I saw this, probably on the kernel mailing list Here is a link anyway: http://sourceforge.net/projects/linux-hotplug If your USB controller has not died then perhaps this is the reason for your issue and for the issue with mice. Matt