My Mac Book won't recognize my external hard drive

I currently have an external hard drive that I'm connecting to a usb port and nothing happens. I can see that the lights on the actual hard drive are on and it's spinning but the mac isn't showing up as an available drive.

Go to Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility and see if the drives show in the left column. Also from the Finder under the Apple/About This Mac/More Info select USB in the left column. Is the HD list there?
Is the hard drive new?
Is there and OS on it?
Do other peripherals work from the hub?
Will it work when plugged in direct?
Joe

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