USB Hub/Device Issues - Win7 32bit

Hello,

I bought a USB hub for my laptop which has only 2 ports total and I need at minimum 3. I plug my headset and mouse into the hub and they function perfectly, but when I plug my External Hard Drive into the other primary USB port, I am unable to access it, says the USB device is not recognized, even though without the USB Hub plugged in to the other port, it works perfectly, but if I plug the external hard drive into the hub with the other 2 devices (which I'm trying to avoid doing) the hard drive works fine, so obviously the problem lies with something pertaining to the hub. My question is, is there some sort of device setting that gets changed when I plug in a USB hub that causes only the USB ports on the Hub to be recognized? Any info would be greatly appreciated.