Computer won't recognize external hard drive

[02bin3]

I just plugged a WD external hard drive into my Windows Vista lap top and when I went to open the F drive that it was listed under, I got the following message:  Please insert a disk into Removable Drive F.  The small icon in the Task Bar recognizes it as Mass Storage, but my computer does not.  I'd never plugged this external hard drive into this computer before.  It had always been plugged into my desk top but now I need some of the information from it for my lap top.  How can I get my computer to recognize it as mass storage and not a dvd drive?   Thank you

[truenorth]

Here is a solution from Microsoft.Please see if it is applicable to your problem (it is an article pertaining to external drives)
"For Windows Vista and Windows 7 users:
Click Start and type Device Manager in the Search box
Click Device Manager in the Control Panel list
Locate the Disk drives item in the list and click the small arrow to the right to expand the list of drives
If a disk drive is disabled you will see an icon with an arrow pointing down over the icon of the disk drive
If you see an icon with an arrow pointing down over the icon of the disk drive, double-click the icon and click the Enable Device button
Click Next on the Enabling a device dialog box, click Next, and then click Finish
Click Close and then close the Device Manager window

Note: If you don't see your disk drive in the listed drives, the drive may not have been detected by Windows.

Note: If you receive an error message when Enabling the disk drive, you may have a defective disk drive."
 truenorth

P.S. Here is a link that goes into great length on dealing with issues of unrecognized external drives (of all kinds with the common factor being they are ALL USB connected).See if the above doesn't solve the issue. There are many possible reasons why the problem you are having can occur.
http://www.techspot.com/community/topics/troubleshoot-windows-wont-recognize-usb-hard-drive-fix-unassigned-drive-letter.122125/

[Geek-9pm]

You can't. Not today.

Put it  back where is was. Make it a shared folder. Share the whole drive. Next find it on your local network and transfer files over the network.

Yes, eventually your will find what the problem is. But the about of time you will spend on that is not reasonable. Just make it a network drive at its original location. Copy the files you need.

[02bin3]

Thank you, truenorth, for your referral to the techspot.com hyperlink.  I tried one of their easy solutions which was to just change the USB cord and that worked just fine.

[truenorth]

glad it worked out,truenorth