Seagate 1tb small external hard drive isnt showing up on my laptop

[Paige-Holly]

it was working fine . i plugged it into my tv and was working fine then this morning i turned the tv on and went to use it but it was coming up as a recording device so i switched it to a different usb port and it wouldnt come up at all . i then put it into my laptop and nothings coming up . please help

 

[DR_Luke]

It is not uncommon for these drives to get stuck heads, though the issue may be more of a logical one. If the data is important, you really should seek professional data recovery assistance. It likely won't cost more than a few hundred USD.

A few labs I recommend are:

Recovery Force
Data-Medics
PCImage

On the off chance that the issue is with formatting, you can try R-studio. But, I read your description that the drive not being physically seen, suggesting physical issues.

Good luck!

 

[RolandJS]

If you decide not to send it off to a DR company...
If affordable, if possible, boot a usb or dvd backup/restore/clone utility, one of your choosing, and clone your source HD onto an external target HD. Put that target HD in a safe place, in case more drastic recovery attempts are needed. Meanwhile, there are numerous free and pay-for data recovery utilities and there are many threads all over The 'Net that can guide you through DR.