External hard drive is no longer visible

Hi there
My macbook recently wouldn't boot so needed to be reset.
I backed everything up from the hard drive using another mac to an external hard drive.
The hard drive was working fine and fully visible last night and now it won't show up on either mac.
I've tried it on a windows pc - it loads and all the files are still there.
Thanks for any help with this. I know there are quite a few threads about this but I thought it may make a diff if it shows up easily on a windows pc.
Thanks,
Ben

Honestly i cannot remember sorry, i got it like 5 maybe 6 yrs ago and just started downloading things to it as the memory on the computer started filling up and when i wanted to see photos/videos on my TV.
My wife did tell me after i had written this post that she did try and record TV to it as it was plugged in. I think by doing so somehow has deleted everything.   It reads on my TV yet has no files in it but won't show up on my computer. hope this helps.
Starting to think it is going to cost more to retrieve files on it than it will be to buy a newer and larger one.

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