My external won't show up on my laptop

Perform a total power recycle to both external disk and your laptop.

I have faced this when I try to access the Seagate 3TB hdd connected to my router from my MacX but have not accessed for a while. The disk is shown but the contents throw " location does not exit"

you are not swapping from mAC to PC and back , right?
try other USB ports.
many external drives do not run with out an external power pack.
elements, use 4 diffr. 18watt power packs, Are you using the right one?

so plug that in ,first. then plug in USB , w7 must go Ding dong
or the USB is DEAD. (use this as #1 fact to follow)
then put ear to the case of drive, hear it spin?
if not ,there is no power, for SURE.
solve that first.
ok, it spins. (soft whirl\'g sound, do this when new to memorize how GOOD sounds)
for a tests, leave the USB cable , not connected.
let w7 boot to the desktop.
now plug in the USB HDD, cable.
W7 goes, Ding dong.
then see the USB icon in the tray, does it see the drive>?
Y/n?
click on that tray icon, i see USB to ATPI bridge then...
My externals (have many) shows as Z:/external below , bridge....
if not , USB is failing.
yes, ding dong, yes Icon, yes see drive above.!

then go to disk manager, type those 2 words in the run box.
start +run " disk manager"
CP(controlpanel)+computer management +disk management.
does disk manager see this spinning drive.
mine shows,. DISK 2 and is letter coded Z:
if not , the USB port is not working. or the drive is not with power.
if disk manager shows the drive, the assign a letter to said drive
now program manager can see the drive, with this letter Z.
it dont need to be Z , per ce\' but that letter is a nice flag.
step by step.

oops it has green tech, that means it goes to sleep.
make sure you turn that off first. or it may not show up at all.
it\'s so green its , invisible?

wd on their DL page has a spin down utility, use that.

Download the "password protection manager" software from the Sony website. When installed it will detect your Sony External hard drive.

Try chkdsk or download Testdisk and run to ensure the disk is in good order.

I don't know the make. model, of laptop or your OS? Open network connections, is it enabled? Is there a Network Icon in the Tray Notification Area? You really do not need a Disk to connect. Just plug in the ethernet and boot the machine.The computer should ID the connection, if it enabled and working properly. If not open Device Manager , Network Adapters and enable the ethernet adapter.For further assistance respond to post.

PLEASE RE format your LAPTOP

The disk is dying - hardware defect. Last attempt to save some of your files: take apart the casing and extract the actual hard disk from it; put it directly inside a desktop and try to access it from there. If the disk isn't recognized or you get an IO error when you try then the damage is too great. If you only get a format error you could try this program
http://www.ptdd.com/recoverdeletedpartition.htm

Hi

assuming that the external hard disk is usb

i would try this

plug in the external hard drive
then go to device manager
then hover your mouse at the top of the box
and look for a icon that says scan for new hardware
then hit the scan icon
your laptop may or maynot recognize the external hard drive at this stage
now leaving it plugged in restart the laptop
and with any luck windows will now recognize it


good luck
hope you get sorted with it

Start by logging on as the Administrator so you can check the Task Manager and find out what Application or Process is monopolizing the system.

If the system is still unresponsive boot into Safe Mode. (Press F8 before the Windows startup screen appears.) If everything is fine in Safe Mode type MSCONFIG at the Command Prompt and start disabling features until you find the culprit.

Last resort, buy or borrow an external USB CD/DVD drive and use it to reinstall Windows.

Important: Reinstalling will ERASE the hard drive.

If this helps please vote for my solution.

It would appear that you may need to do a couple of things in order to restore the drive back to normal. I would disconnect the drive using the icon provided to this effect and doing it after the message says it's safe to disconnect it.
If the message says differently, I would still disconnect it, unles you're in the middle of writing, which you're not.
Upon reconnecting the drive, should the condition persist, I would recycle the laptop and try again. It does not make sense that a disk that you recently read from to burn a CD is no longer readable, unless the mechanism inside the drive had collected debris that caused the data on your floppy to be ruined. That would be an unfortunate disaster.
If rebooting the laptop still fails to read the disks, then try blowing any dust or dirt from inside the drive using one of those small canisters of compressed air that people use to clean their keyboards and other devices and try again.
Should the condition persist, try loading the floppy disks on another system to see whether they've been ruined by your drive.
If they are readable, then the drive would appear to be deffective.
Good luck!