[nfbcs] External drive problem

[Tracy Carcione]

I am having a problem with my external drive, which is a WD My Passport. 
When I plug in the USB cable, it makes the USB noise, and I hear the disk 
whirring away for a couple minutes, but then nothing happens.  It doesn't 
ask me how I want to proceed, and I don't see it on My Computer.
I do see it under Control Panel/System/Hardware/WD drive management devices. 
When I choose properties there, it doesn't show me anything about how much 
data is on the drive.  It just has "troubleshoot" and device usage: enable 
or disable.  When I choose the driver tab, I see a driver, and I'm not 
getting an error saying "no driver".
When I plug the drive into another PC, it asks me to install the software, 
which I've managed to mislay, but I'm not sure I installed it on my PC, 
either.

Where do I go from here? How can I tell if the drive has died, or if it's 
some other problem?  Is it normal for a drive to whir a bit at the 
beginning, or does that indicate it's damaged?
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Tracy