External Hard Drive not connecting

I had a WD passport external hard drive which I had hooked up to Time Machine. It has been working fine for over a year now. Just today I noticed the desktop Time Machine icon was not showing up as usual. I went to Time Machine and it says it cannot find the external hard drive.
I shut down the computer, disconnected the hard drive, rebooted and replugged it in. No change. The hard drive does not show up as an icon on the desktop.
The drive does show up in Disk Utilities. I tried a repair but got an error: "Filesystem verify or repair failed"
Any suggestions? Thanks!

DoctorMario wrote:
"Filesystem verify or repair failed"
maybe it's time to get something stronger than DU. perhaps DiskWarrior can fix the drive.
alas, it is also possible that the drive is close to going belly up ...
JGG

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Carborundum wrote:
Edit: Down(up?)grading to firmware version 1.0.01 fixed the problem.
not surprised. I was going to reccomend you dropped down too. But I see you fixed it. Kudos to you. Im glad it works. Lots of drives dont work with the E4200.
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dickonhowell, Welcome to the discussion area!
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Hello everyone,
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1.          Shut down the computer.
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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
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External Hard Drive not connecting

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