I have an external hard drive and it randomly stopped being detected on my macbook pro

Hi, I've got a seagate backup plus external hard drive that randomly stopped being detected by my macbook pro for no reason. I've tried it on my friends macbook pro and it works fine, his macbook is just about identical to my macbook. Help would be apprieciated!

Here's my lo-tech solution (if you have Parallels) to this frustrating problem:
Eject your hard drive.
Unplug (USB) your hard drive from the MAC .
Start Parallels.
When Windows has started, plug your drive back into the MAC.
You should get a little screen asking if you want the drive to be utilized by MAC or Windows. Select Windows.
Use Windows to copy your files over to the hard drive.
This is less than ideal and not a long-term solution, but I was afraid of attempting any reformatting since I have many files on my hard drive. 
Just remember that Windows has to be running first, before you plug in your hard drive.

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