My WD My Book Essential 2tb drive not recognized to my PC when plugged in

I have a lot of MKV files on this that I want to use as my part of my media server. I’ve had this plugged in to my Viewsonic streamer last year and it worked fine. But the Viewsonic crapped out so the WD sat there not used for a few months. Now when I plug the USB in (either to USB or USB3.0 on my PC), it doesn’t recognize it. The power is on. The white lite is on in front. I can hear the disc and I can feel the disc spinning. But Windows doesn’t recognize it. I plug into numerous USB slots and it doesn’t make a single sound. Checked “My Computer” and it doesn’t even register.

Last option is to pry it open, retrieve the hdd, and put it into another enclosure. But I like the fact of having USB3. Please help. There a lot of movies I don’t want to lose. Thx

Connect the my book to the PC and check if it is recognized on the disk mangement window. Check the link below for the steps to access the disk management window. 

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1284/session/L3RpbWUvMTM1MTM3MjQ0OC9zaWQvTms2RmZPOWw%3D

Nope. Not in disc management. I’ve checked that. when you plug the thing in, Windows should make a little chime, saying a device just connected. In this case, it does not. It doesn’t do it on my laptop. It doesn’t recogize it on my media player. Either I have a bad cable, or something else is wrong with the drive. This thing is a little more than a year old. I ordered a new cable from Amazon. WE’ll see if that doesn’t solve the problem.