Not able to format external hard drive

I'm using an iMac Intel 3.06ghz, 4gb ram, with OS x 10.6.7 snow leopard. I am trying to use a Maxtor Black Armor 160 gb to back up files to. It used to work when I had a PC. Then I got this Mac. I tried to format it before in Disk Utility. When I tried to do it FAT32 it started to process and then the power went out in my house.

When I tried to start it over again, Disk Utility sees the drive but I can't do anything with it. All my options are ghosted out. The default window in Disk Utility says its a 160gb drive. When I right click on it and click info, it says the drive is 0 bytes.

All my various options for doing things to the drive in Disk Utility are there but are ghosted out as well. As for the drive itself, I can hear the disk spinning but LED only comes on for a second and goes out.

Also as soon as I plug in the drive, nothing shows on my Mac desktop. What can I do next? Is there any better software out there for this that is maybe free?

Thanks, Paul

Welcome to the Mac Forums.

It sounds like your Maxtor hard drive has bit the dust. Unless you had some data on it that you need to extract, just buy a new drive. There is software that can possibly revive it (doubtful) but the price for the software is more than what the drive is worth. Disk Warrior