external harddrive - please help

Lifeforms

What I'd suggest doing, if you do have a technical minded friend/relative who has something like a HDD dock (suitable for the connection and physical size) get them to check that the HDD itself isn't corrupted.

Basically if you've tried connecting to a couple of computers and nothing happens (and you've used the right leads, ie used a power lead if provided, as well as tried a different usb lead) then either the HDD is dead, or the Caddy is dead/unconnected.

As an aside, don't plug it into a USB hub, try using a direct usb connection (at the back of the computer, where the monitor cable goes in etc (that section, unless you have an extra USB card installed) rather than using the hub, or any front usb ports. It might be that if it's unpowered externally it can't generate enough power from those other ports.

If it still doesn't work, either risk it and buy a new caddy, or dock (docks are dearer, and you could get away with a caddy off ebay, or ebuyer, etc) and hope that fixes it, or investigate if you can put it either into your machine (with the least amount of hassle) or someone elses. Someone here has posted the usual methods of opening caddies, so you can try that and see if it's all connected right to begin with. There's not going to be a dead on way to determine if it is the caddy or is the HDD, all you can do is problem solve till you get to discover which it is.

(prolly gunna be yelled at with this, but when I need to short term access a HDD in my old desktop I'd just turn it on it's side, dig out a HDD power plug/sata/ide cable and balance it upside down on the case chasis. Obviously you can't do this constantly, and you need to be careful because they're all sensitive bits. Now I have a multi use dock, so I don't do it any more.)

Linbox

On the external hard drive you have
1 mains cable to a power supply - you say the light is on, ok.
2 a USB connector cable that should be plugged into both the external hard drive and the computer you are using.
Swap usb plug to different socket on the computer. Most computers have at least 3 usb ports wait 1 min then go back to "computer" window and check if its displaying.

Oops noticed this has already been put forward.