External Hard Drive - not recognized

So, I found an old g-drive that I have no clue what's on there. I figured I'll mount it & see what's there & if possible I'll reformat it to use as a new external hard-drive ( not even sure if that's possible).

Well anyway when I mounted it I got a message that my computer doesn't recognize the device - so I pressed Initialize. But my Disk Utility is almost completely greyed out. Is this drive DEAD - should I just dump it - or is it possible to reformat & use again?

Thanks for your help.

What if you select the " partition " tab ... does it show any partitions ?

Cheers ... McBie

honestly, I left this drive mounted and suddenly my computer froze. Don't know if it has anything to do with it or not - but I'm kinda afraid to remount it. Don't want to lose any info on my computer. If you tell me it's safe to remount & check it out then I'll do it...