Welcome to the TH community, @chevychic!
I'm sorry to see you struggle with your WD external HDD. I'd recommend you check how the drive would get recognized if you connect it using a different USB cable and also to a different USB port on your laptop. I'd also suggest you
go to Disk Management and see if the drive pops up there. Another thing that might help is plugging the drive to another PC/laptop and check how it would get detected there. I'd also suggest you go to Device Manager and check if all your USB hub controller drivers are up-to-date and installed from the laptop manufacturer's official website. While there, you could also try
uninstalling & reinstalling the WD external as a device.
Keep me posted with the troubleshooting!
SuperSoph_WD