Pc wont recognize my external hard drive

I cleaned of all the stuff from my external hard drive and was going to reformat it but accidently removed the partition instead. Now when I plug it into the PC nothing happens. Before i got a message the a new device was detected and it would come up, now there is nothing. Its not showing up in the disk management area either. I'm running Win XP and the hard drive is a Western Digital 40gb that I was going to use for sharing things between my PC and my laptop. My laptop is also running Win XP and the drive isnt showing up on it either.

 

Hi and welcome to MG. Have a read of this Link and see if it applies to your problem as reference here is for a USB Western Digital Hard Drive .
http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/external-hard-drive-not-recognized/

 

I finely fixed the problem and you won't believe what the problem was! The connector wasn't seated all the way on the inside of the HD enclosure! I was desperate at that point and was ready to trash the whole thing and started pushing and tugging anything I could when I discovered the cause. I do appreciate your help and will save that link for future reference. I still enjoy working on my computer even at the age of 71 but "It's not easy getting old!"

 

Glad to hear you have it fixed ... us ol timers gotta stick together but having said that your beating me by 5 years.