External Hard drive not backed up on Time Machine

One of my Seagate external hard drives has failed. I thought that the Time Machine was backing up its contents onto my other external hard drive - I set it to back up everything including the external HD. However I've looked into the Time Machine & gone back to before the HD failed, & there is no sign of it. Surely its contents should have been saved on there even if it has now failed? I don't understand the Time Machine anyway; it seems to only show me certain parts of the computer contents; it's really hard to see all of what is on there.
Second question; what is the best brand of external HD to buy? I thought Seagate was reliable but I no longer trust it after this failure. Someone on this forum recommended OWC Mercury ProElite series?

Thanks all,
This is helpful. I am 100% certain I set it to back up everything except the HD it is backing up onto - I remember specifically telling it to back up the other HD -  but strangely, when I open the TM window I cannot see anywhere to specify the folders etc to back up; please see screenshot. All it shows is that the TM back-up drive is excluded. I don't understand where all the preferences have gone? I got this window by clicking 'options'; the only other choice was 'select disk'.
Anyway, if as you say they are not included even if you expressly tell it to back them up, maybe including them has no effect. I will try the shift-command-C thing & see if that helps.
Thanks.

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