External hard drive doesn’t show up on mac or PC

[martin2345uk]

Ive got an external HDD that I have quite a few photos on... I haven’t tried to use it in a while but now it doesn’t show up on my Mac or my mum’s PC when I connect it via USB - its little lights come on and I can feel it whirring but nothing shows up in Finder or the file explorer... any ideas?

 

[Longkeg]

Hard drives die all the time. Ever notice all the discussions about backup strategies on these forums?

Does it show up in Disk Utility? Applications-> Utilities-> Disk Utility.

If the drive shows up on the list on the left run First Aid and see what happens. Truthfully though it doesn’t look good. Third party data recovery may be an option but you’re talking big money if you go that route.