external hard drive not showing up in finder, disk utility, or system profiler.

[waystinthyme]

hello,
i am trying to use my external hdd, but it is not showing up in finder, disk utility, or system profiler. the device showed up yesterday, but after formatting the hdd, it has disappeared. i have tried both usb ports as well as a different usb cable. i am currently running os x 10.4.11 and the external drive is a western digital (don't know the product number, it was given to me by a friend.)

 

[maflynn]

What did you format it as, HFS+, FAT32, NTFS? Did you try rebooting your computer and turning the drive off/on?