trouble playing CD rom on laptop

I have a foreign language CD rom which I tried to play on my laptop using a portable DVD writer. When I plugged the player into the left-hand USB port of my Lenovo X220 I get this message: "the USB Mass Storage Device has malfunctioned and exceeded the power limits of its hub port. You should disconnect the device." But when I used a different USB port it played. It also played on a different laptop. So I assume there's something wrong with that particular USB port. Does anyone have any idea what the problem could be?

To be honest you need to break down each unit's specific requirements\demands and see how they match up, and not just the standard spec, you need to find out the technical spec of each, namely power supply\draw on each USB port\Lead, if this shows the "problem" port as not having enough power to supply that unit, but the other ports do, then all is well, it's working as to its ability's, and you will need to remember not to use that port for that device.

Another factor is take note of how many other devices were connected and drawing power from other ports, if your other ports are used, and drawing x amount of power at the time you add this device, it may be that adding this device exceeds the maximum power your system can handle, so if you can go to the makers of each device, and see if they can supply this info it will give an idea as to what may be happening, a last thought is how old is the system ?

I am thinking if it is under warranty it may be easier to go back to where you got it, and explain about this, and say you think your system may be faulty, they usually have one on demo if that new, and in a big enough store, that way you could plug the portable drive into the ports of a demo system, if it all works then it supports there may be a fault issue on your one, it may be a faster way to find out if it's an available option, hope something here helps.

Thanks for the advice, 8210GUY. I'm a bit clueless about all these things; I thought all USB ports were the same. 

TBH I suspect they probably are, but given it is only happening in 1 port, you have to consider other possible things, it's not impossible they may use more than 1 USB relay (power supplied from more than 1 circuit), a damaged port is not an unreasonable possibility, but from what you have said all other devices work ok in it ?

If that's the case then a bad port is removed as a possible cause, but until you find out just what is happening, you can't totally ignore this as a possible, but keep it in mind and see what happens with the rest of the things before thinking about it again.

But power supply is always an exacting point, so if the total running on all ports comes close enough to it's max, then adding another device could take it over it's max ability, resulting in anything from just a device failure, to possible hardware damage, so always take note of devices that require a high power draw.

Another possible is the devices USB plug has been damaged or a short in it, but again if it works in other ports this also is highly unlikely, as is damage to it's lead for the same reason, but such things are always possible if it does the same when plugged in to any number of systems, I take it that all other devices work fine in this port ?