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Your WD has probably gone belly up. If you can't get it to register on either computer and you've tried different computers then it has croaked.
Were you able to use it in the past on the windows computer and the mac? If so, that's strange because they are two different formats and most times when you plug the drive into one or the other it will want to reformat it to be able to access it.
Does the drive make any sounds, even a spinning up sound? Are you using it in an external case or just inside your computer? Also, is this a drive you've been using and you have data on it, or is it a new drive?
It "died" -- either the electronic circuit-board "under" the "spinning" part of the disk-drive has short-circuited, or the motor that spins the recording surfaces has quit.
You've tried it on another computer -- so you've done all that you can.
Any 500GB disk-drive is likely to still be under the W.D. warranty.
Open the enclosure, and get the model-number and serial-number from the label on the disk-drive.
Then, access the W.D. web-site, and click "check warranty status", and enter that information.
If the warranty is valid, W.D. will replace the device, at minimal cost to you.
If the warranty has expired, W.D. has a "Customer Loyalty" program -- purchase a new W.D. device from the W.D. web-site, and you qualify for a good discount on your purchase.
Or, remove the disk-drive from the enclosure, buy a replacement, compatible, disk-drive, and "transplant" it into the enclosure, to create a working external storage device.
perhaps this new computer has usb 2.0 while the old dell was of older standards.check whether the external hdd supports usb 2.0,,if it do so,,buy a usb 2.0 cable and start using it.best of luck
Does your drive make any unusual sounds like any of these: http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php ? If yes then you got a problem - it's something mechanical with the heads. If it sounds normal or doesn't spin up at all - try to connect it to another computer and if still no go - remove the internal drive from enclosure and connect directly to PC via SATA port.
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