My Passport not recognised by Windows

hi - my girlfriends My Passport (older model not sure capacity 500mb or 1TB I think). Has recently failed to be recognised by Win 8. 

It is not showing on My computer, Disk Managment or the BIOS. The power led is lit and windows does make the sound when you plug it in, but will come up with an error msg - The USB device you tried to connect was not recognised try again and if it continues it may be malfunctioning (words to that effect). 

I have also tried a new USB cable and other sockets. 

There was a recent incident of coffee spillage, which I suspect is a culprit - But grateful any advce. Is it going to be possible to recover the data which is the crucial thing as contains many old photos?

Thanks any help!

[MOD: Post moved]

This forum is for the My Passport WIRELESS drive.

Your post will likely be moved by a moderator, so keep an eye out for it.

If the same thing happens on other computers, then yes, I would guess that the drive was damaged by liquid.  The internal USB/SATA bridge or the internal HD itself has probably been damaged.

My Passport forum section:   http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-Portable-Drives/bd-p/BoardExample2

oops sorry reading fail, and thanks for your reply.