External Harddrive lost

Hey i was formatting a 150gb maxtor external hard drive to FAT32 when the format process froze (in disk utility). I had to force quit. I tried opening disk utility again and it would not let me format the disk. Finally I unplugged the disk and plugged it back in and disk utility couldn't find it. Since the file system may be corrupted am I SOL with this hard disk or is there a way that i can force disk utility to find it (it goes without saying that it is not in finder either)

any help is appreciated.

First make sure the cable is OK. If the drive has a separate power supply, use it instead of USB port power. Also try plugging the drive into another USB port. If it's not power related then read on....

If Disk Utility can't see the drive, it might be defective. If you have access to a PC either at home or work, try plugging the drive into it and see if it shows up. If not, the drive may have died.

Regards.