WD500 HDD isn't recognized

[Mithosphere]

Ok so my father seems to have a bit of a problem with a 500GB hdd that he purchased from tigerdirect about 2 weeks ago. It worked i think once, but now computers dont recognize it being a drive. He uses it in an external case the Thermaltake MAx 4.

So he asked me to take a look at it, I hooked it up to my computer using the mobo's sata connection and power from the psu. At first boot windows recognized new hardware, and when i clicked on My Computer the 500 gig flashed for a split second with the icon of a hard drive with a little yellow question mark covering it. So i check the hardware list and it says that the drive is working properly, but it doesnt show up at all. Anyone know the problem?

[RA1D]

western digital has a diagnostic program you can download here and it should tell you if the drive is messed up

[gvblake22]

You usually have to let Windows "initialize" the drive. Go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management. Under the "Storage" tree, select Disk Management. The drive should show up in there and you should be able to right click on the volume and select Initialize (or something like that).

[Mithosphere]

well i downloaded the diagnostic tool, didnt help much, Health of the drive is: Warning, whatever that means

And under the disk management it still wont let me initialize it. . .

[gvblake22]

So the drive is connected directly internally and it won't let you initialize or format it?

EDIT:
Just found this on the WD website, maybe it will help?

[Mithosphere]

Well i tried internally, but then hooked it back through USB, so thats the screenshot of it hooked through usb. And since it was hooked to my computer, i didnt want to try that partitioning thing. That and there was already loads of data on it, so i figured i'd let my father do that . . .