Computers not recognizing Western Digital external hard drive

[madpal]

So my family has this particular model of the WD external hard drive (I'm pretty sure, we didn't get it from amazon though) and we've had it for a long time with no problems, but then when my dad tried to access the photos etc. stored on it, his computer wouldn't recognize that he had plugged it in. The same happened on our desktop computer. It has two cords: one that plugs into an outlet, and one that plugs into the hard drive with a USB mini-b and into the computer with a normal USB. I tried using a different cord for the latter and it still didn't work. I also noticed that the outer layer I guess which covers all of the parts inside is kind of popping out in one area, and though I don't think that'd be why it stopped working but just in case I thought I'd include that.

Anyway, do you think the problem is the other cord? Or the hard drive itself? I just really want to be able to access all the stuff we stored on there

 

[knox herrington]

Well take the case off and make sure nothing has exploded, granted this will void any warranty but it sounds pretty old, then try to connect it to another computer, you didnt upload a picture of the hard drive so I cant tell if its damaged or not, but assuming its corrupted connect it to the computer and go into the boot menu and attempt to recover the drive