Can't get my external hard drive to show up on MacBook Pro

I used Time Machine to keep backups for my MacBook Pro using the latest version of Lion. I backed up to a WD external drive. My computer went to be repaired and they had to put in a new hard drive. When I got home and plugged in the external drive it appeared on my desktop. The Apple rep told me to drag over folders from the backup. I looked through a few of the backups (dated) and everything seemed to be there. But I got the spinning wheel as I tried to copy over "latest". I couldn't get rid of it and had to reboot.
So next it appeared, showed one folder but when I clicked on that folder there was nothing inside.
Then I couldn't see the hard drive any longer.  Now I take out the drive and plug it in again and the drive won't appear in the list of devices. I use the disk utility and it doesn't see it either.
Needless to say I'm pretty concerned. I've had the problem of an external drive not appearing a few times over the years but a reboot or unplug and plug back in always fixed it. not this time.
Help!
Much appreciate,

If you have recently upgraded to Lion, it would be probably a matter of drivers. You should go to the official web site and download the latest drivers. If not, try to format the HDD with disc utilities. If your disc doesn't appear even in disc utilities, try to format it with any copy of windows in fat 32 format

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