Why Can't I see or access my external hard drive anymore using finder

I have a MacBook using Lion 10.7.5 and I use a Seagate 1 TByte external hard drive to store large photo and video files so that these won't take up space on my system hard drive. I also use the drive to share files with friends, colleagues and family members. Just recently I was no longer able to see my harddrive when I plugged it into the USB port on the Mac. However, when using the Disk Utilities, I was able to see the hard drive but could not access or see the files. Therefore the USB cable and USB port is working from a hardware perspective. The light also was on when I plugged the hard drive into the USB port so I know the hard drive is working. I brought the laptop and hard drive to my local Apply store to see if they could determine the problem. They did everything I already did regarding the testing of hardware. They recommended that I reload my software because something in the OS must have gotten corrupted. I re-installed the OS and the updates to the version. The re-install DIDN'T help. Using Bootcamp with Windows XP which is installed on my MacBook, I wanted to find out if Windows would recognize the hard drive and also give me access to the files. Using Windows, I was able to now see the drive and access the files. I now know the hard drive works, the USB cable and port is working and windows gave me the ability to access all of the files.
THE FIX: The hard drive was stuck in the Windows Mount Mode and because of this, the Mac OS was not able to recognize the hard drive using finder in Mac OS. When I was still in Windows, I ejected or dismounted the dick prior to removing the hard drive from the MacBook. I then shut down Windows and restarted the Mac OS. Once the system was fully up, I plugged the hard drive into the MacBook via the USB port. The Hard Drive is now being recognized by my Macbook once more. I can again access all my files.
HOW THIS PROBLEM OCCURRED: While sharing my hard drive with a colleague to transfer some files on a PC using Windows, the colleague disconnected the hard drive from the PC after the files were transferred by pulling the USB cable out of the USB port without a software dismount or ejection. This caused the hard drive to hang in a "windows mounted state" even though there was no power to the hard drive. When peripherals are connected to either a Mac or PC systems, they should always to properly dismounted via a software dismount or a system ejection. Proper dismount of peripherals will always insure the closure and correct allocation of data within the booting sectors and data fields of the hard drive.

ld3mb wrote:
Thanks everyone. I suppose I'll just reformat for Apple. I need to use it for large files, and I suppose I could survive without editing ablities on Windows.
There's another alternative, format it as exFat, 4G limit does not apply and OSX + Windows will be able to read/write.

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ld3mb wrote:
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