MyPassport USB2.0/3.0 only showing up on devices and printer?!?!

Anyone that responds, talk to me like I’m two.  Scratch that, a two year old could probably figure this out.  I certainly cannot.

I have friends sending me their My Passport external hard drives so that I can share 100 GB of photos that I collected.  I have had NO problems with any of the  hard drives that have been sent to me, until today.

Usually when I connect a Hard drive, its little light turns on and you can feel it being on.  When you click on “start” >“computer” it shows up as its own external driver and also a window will pop up asking if you want to view files etc.  Then I simply click and drag and drop my files into the hard drive icon.

THIS odd drive does no such thing.  Its light is on, and it is humming when I plug it in.  But no window opens.  When I go to “start”>computer it isn’t there.  It shows up under “start”> devices and printers, which I obviously cannot drag information/files into.  THe drive owner says it is empty, but I cannot even see that.  Anyone have any ideas on how to make this behave like it is supposed to?  OR WHY it is acting as it is?

What OS are you using? A drive formatted for Mac won’t work on Windows without software.

Joe