Laptop does not see the external hard drive

I have a WD external hard drive model #WD5000H1cs-00. For several years this ran on my pc with Windows XP. I recently moved the drive to a laptop running Windows Vista and now the laptop does not see the drive. What do I need to do to get the laptop to see the drive?

bookworm14

For a start go into disk Management and see if the drive is shown there and see if it has a drive letter and is online.

Joe

That’s what I meant when I say that the computer does not see the external drive: it is not listed. What did you think I meant?

bookworm14

First directly connect the laptops power adapter to a wall outlet. Then check if there are any yellow triangle with an excalmation point in device manager. If there is update them

A lot of people only look in My Computer and don’t even know what Disk Manager is.

Joe

Click start button/Right click My computer or Computer/Click manage/Click device manager

Check if there is any yellow triangle. Specially Serial bus Controller drivers. it should be listed there.