External Hard drive wont show files or name

Open Start menu
Click the right mouse button on Computer
On the pop out menu click on Manage
In the left hand menu click on Disk Manage
Your drive should show here if it is plugged in.
Delete all partitions
Now create a partition, format it how you want.

Plug the external hard drive into your laptop or desktop computer.

Most external hard drives do this through a cable connecting the hard drive to the USB outlet on a computer.

Plug your external hard drive into a wall outlet if it receives power from an AC adapter rather than your computer.

Click on the "My Computer" icon on your desktop, and open the external hard drive.

It will be located under the USB connecting drive, which is labeled with a letter ranging from "E:" to "K:".

Open the folder on your external hard drive where you would like to save the photographs.

usually in my documents my pictures or if you want to save them to a specific spot so as not get them mixed up.

Create a folder if one is not present right click in my documents select new folder and name it lets say my pics 1

Move this window to the bottom right corner of your screen to be used in future steps.

Open the folder on your home computer where the files are being stored that you wish to transfer to the external hard drive.

These may be on the desktop, in "My Documents" or elsewhere in your computer.

If you are unsure where they are located, you can always search for them by file name by going to "Start" then "Search."

Right-click on the photo file, and select "Cut."

Click on the window showing your hard drive files to bring it into use on the screen.

Right-click on the white space in the window where you would like to transfer the files, and select "Paste."

Your files have now been deleted from their original location and transferred to your external hard drive in the folder you selected

hope this helps

If it behaves like this for multiple computers with multiple operating systems, I would think that the problem is with the hard drive or with how the files were stored. I would recommend trying a free recovery utility:
http://www.piriform.com/recuva

If this does not work, there are professionals who can do this service for you however it is generally expensive.
As a last ditch effort, boot your computer from a free Ubuntu CD (http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download) and see if it recognizes your files.

Hook up that external hard drive to another computer that you know for sure the USB ports work properly. If you still get the same error message or the drive is not recognized then that means the hard drive is bad.

If the hard drive is recognized properly and you can access the files then that means its an issue with the operating system.

You may have to assign a drive letter to it.

Try the hard drive on another computer to see if it is the external or a laptop interface problem. There are EIDE/SATA to usb adapters that you can connect a hard drive to that the computer will then read as an external hard drive. The problem with external HDDs is the usb interface built into them, these are mounted on controller cards and that is ususally where the failure occurs.

It appears you have an external hard drive. It should connect to your computer with a USB cable. Make sure the external hard drive is turned on and running before you connect the usb cable to the computer. Some external hard drives have an on/off switch and some do not. you can hear it running if you put your ear close to the case.

When you plug it in, wait a few minutes and the computer should indicate that it has recognized it. (sometimes this does not happen) In any case, after a few minutes, open My Computer (Computer, in Windows 7) (sometimes referred to as Explorer- NOT to be confused with Windows Explorer which is an internet browser). You should see a list of recognized drives including your external hard drive. Doubler click on it and you should be able to see your files.

If it doesn't show in Explorer, the computer might be trying to assign a drive letter to it that is already taken. To fix that, go to Control panel, Administrator Tools, Computer management, Disk Management. You should see your external drive listed and you can assign an unused drive designation to it there. You should then be able to go back to Explorer and see it. You might have to refresh the Explorer screen.

try pluging it into a different usb port try a different cable if they all do not work then the partision table has been damaged and the drive will have to be reformatted

check if your external hdd connect to the pc.. cables is important..

I have a Western External Hard Drive 320 and when I plug it in the computer will recognize it and allow me to access my files but after a short while if I go to click on a file t open it the WD 320 will click off for a minute and then reappear in the auto run mode.