WD external hard drive doesn't appear on my Desktop or in Finder

Hi, 
I have a Western Digital hard drive connected to my iMac (Intel).  When I first intstalled it, it worked fine.  Then it began to intermittently exit my desktop, generating the message This Device Was Not Properly Disconnected.  If I restarted my computer it would usually return.  However now I can't get it to appear on my Desktop at all. 
I ran a WD Smartware check of the hard drive which indicated that it is fine.  It powers on, the small white light is on, and I can hear and see that it is on.  I also tried different data and power cables and ran Disk Utility, which said the WD drive was fine.  The hard drive is connected directly to the computer, and to the wall socket, no buses, etc.  I tried to download some pictures from my camera and got the error message Camera Window Does Not Recognize Hard Drive.  Finally I tried connecting it to my laptop.  The hard drive appears perfectly on the laptop and all my info, photos, backups etc, are there.
According to the WD website, if these are the results of the various trials, the problem is with a driver within my Mac OS.  The WD drive doesn't have a driver of its own, it uses one that is built into the Mac OS, which WD says must have become corrupted. 
I have no idea how to correct this!  Does anyone have an idea??  WD says they don't know, only Apple will know.
I have two other older WD hard drives connected to my Mac as well and they work fine.  They are different models though. 
Thanks for any help!

Well now the two other WD hard drives are beginning to act the same way...

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