Problem detecting external firewire HD

Hi,

I'm relatively new to Macs so I apologize if this is a dumb question.

I have an external Maxtor HD (the One Touch firewire version). The HD worked fine for a while and the Mac had no problem with it. However recently the Mac stopped detecting it. I have no idea where to begin resolving this. I know in Windows there is a way to view external devices and it even showed when there were device driver issues. Is there an equivalent? Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks,
Paul

PS - I have a 20" Intel iMac, and I've tried installing the latest Maxtor software to no avail.

i'm guessing this topic may be moved to a more appropriate sub-forum...

have you tried connecting the drive before powering up?

can you use usb at all?

does it work on another machine?

last resort may be to pop the drive into another enclosure and see if that works...

Mod note: thread moved to a better forum.

Have you tried running the disk utility application and see that it sees the disk.

Yes, disk utility doesn't pick up the disk.