WD 500GB freezes and warms up. PC does not recognize it either

HI there, I am new in this. 

I have my WD external HD for about 2-3 years now. Never had a problem before until now as it won’t connect to my laptop + laptop has a new internal hard and I have not saved the external hard drive anywhere except in the hard drive itself. I wonder if the laptop is broken and there is no way to have saved all my stuff in its 500GB. Or if it is not broken what can I do to try fix it? Once I connect the hard drive in the power it lights on and stay there as it is not doing anything not connecting to the PC, and it  gets warm. I have unplugged and plugged it back on quite a few times but no success in seeing it working. 

Appreciate any help , thanks

Regards,

I have the same problem…