Trouble getting an old external drive to work

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

Recently attempted to plug in my old My Book external hard drive: model # WD5000D032

Problem is, my computer isn’t recognizing the drive. Nothing is popping up under My Computer. Under the device manager, it’s coming up as an Unknown Device.

Running Windows 7 on a Dell laptop.

Any ideas would be very helpful! 

2

I don’t think this drive should require additional drivers. Showing up as Unknown is not a good sign. You might want to try accessing it with a Linux boot CD if there is data you want to recover. You could also see if WD Windows Diagnostic program (WINDLG) can see it as a drive. The latest version is here-

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=102&sid=3&lang=en

Linux Rescue CD-

http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage