How do I get time machine/time capsule to back up my external hard drive?

I have been trying to find a way to back up my external hard drive (a Hitachi G-Drive from the Apple store) with time machine and my time capsule. I left it plugged in so it was visible on my MacBook Pro when I did the initial backup yesterday, but it's not showing when I enter time machine. Anyone have any ideas?

A few things to check.....
The external drive attached to your Mac must be formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Check Time Machine Options to make sure that the drive is not excluded from Time Machine backups

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    bplist00Ÿ       
    YHostUUIDs_  RequiresACPower_  SkipSystemFiles[BackupAlias_  DestinationUUID_  LocalizedDiskImageVolumeName_  AlwaysShowDeletedBackupsWarning]ExcludeByPathZAutoBackup° _ $00000000-0000-1000-8000-0019E33631FD
    O        LaCie≈ ∂ΩH+  LaCie ≈ ∂Ωˇˇˇˇ
    LaCie  ≈ Ó˝  ≈ Ó˝   LaCie:LaCie   LaCie   LaCie   /Volumes/LaCieˇˇ_ $E896BFA8-4C77-3A14-BC5D-B8530F38011C_  Time Machine Backups
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    Does Disk Utility see the external?
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  • Can i use time machine with a airport extreme and a external hard drive

    I have connected a hard drive to my airport extreme.
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    Both are possible. However, Apple does NOT support Time Machine backups to AirPort Disks attached to the 802.11n AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBSn). Doing so will potentially lead to data corruption and is highly not recommended. Please check out this excellent Pondini article for more details. This article also provides the Apple Support references that states Apple's position. Bottom line? If your backups are critical to you, then you may want to rethink your backup solution.
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    V.K. is entirely correct.
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