This is a very common yet vague question since there is a wide variety of problems it could be. Since I have to trouble shoot in 1 paragraph I will give some of the most realistic fixes.
Assuming it worked recently or still works with some devices.
1.) Update your chipset drivers. if you bought the computer from HP,DELL, ect, then go to their website under the support link and choose download drivers. Fill in the model number and download chipset driver which is usually labeled as "INTEL", "NVIDIA", "ATI" something rather. Avoid the ones with a similar name with "Graphics" or "Video" in the same sentence.
2.) if you use windows vista or 7 open "startmenu" in the search box at the bottom of the menu type without quotes "chkdsk /f" then click yes to all the following prompts.
If you are using windows xp then open "startmenu" then click on the "RUN" button. In the preceding windows type in without quotes "chkdsk /f" press enter and pres yes to all the prompts. Now restart your computer and let the system run the scan.
3.) Power supply to your laptop ok? Often damaged power supplies (the cord plugging into the wall) can supply insufficient power. This means that the 5V transformer inside the laptop may not be getting enough juice resulting is power failure on connection of device.
4.) The previous statement reminds me to mention that USB devices use 5V of power and about 500MA if juice. All usb ports come paired and connect to 1 header on the motherboard, hence they share power as well. If you have anything else plugged into the paired USB port then try unplugging it.
5.) due to the amount of power a device such as the one you are using requires, you can not plug this into a USB hub and is will not get the required power and fail with the message you mentioned.
6.) if this is windows XP then its worth mentioning that windows XP in previous versions and possibly the current version can not able to recognize more than 10 USB devices. This correlates to the windows xp usb controller and would require manual reset. Unfortunately this is to difficult to explain in detail here but the solution in technical terms is, Uninstall all USB devices under the usb controller within the device manager then reboot as windows will automatically reinstall all connected devices accordingly.