Problems With Flash Drive

[Tracekill]

I have a 5Gig Sony flash drive that I'm trying to get to work with my current Kubuntu installation but it will absolutely not recognize the drive. The strange thing is that randomly while the computer is running it will recognize it for a brief period and then disconnect again. Also, my friends' smaller flash drives are readily recognized by the system although it sometimes disconnects those as well. I have no idea what's going on and my dmesg keeps spitting things like:

[  626.348000] usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 97
[  629.624000] usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 109
[  636.428000] usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 9
[  639.704000] usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 21
[  645.248000] usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 42
[  646.508000] usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 46
[  648.524000] usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 53
[  650.792000] usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 61
[  652.052000] usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 65
[  653.816000] usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 71
[  658.100000] usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 87
[  664.652000] usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 112
[  667.172000] usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 121
[  669.440000] usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
[  671.708000] usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 11
[  672.716000] usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 14
[  679.268000] usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 39

Any help?

[pianomatrix]

Do you think this could be a hardware problem? I don't think these drives should be disconnecting like that. I've had bad experiences with cheap controllers installed in the motherboard, which tend to randomly disconnect just as you say. Is there a way to hook the flash drive into another controller on the same system just to test it?
Oh, and also I would check if the flash drive is getting enough power. That could be an issue too. Maybe the smaller flash drives you've tested simply require less power.