Need Help with External Hard Drive Recovery – Not Showing Up on Laptop

I’m dealing with an issue I’m hoping someone here can help with. I have an external hard drive (WD My Passport, around 2 years old) that suddenly stopped showing up on my Laptop. I’ve only been using it for backups over the past year, and it’s definitely not full.

When I plug it in, I hear a few clicks, but nothing shows up in File Explorer. However, I can see the “Safely Remove Hardware” option in the taskbar listing it as “My Passport.” So it seems like the laptop is detecting something, just not properly.

I tried checking Disk Management, but I’m not familiar with what I’m looking at. There’s no drive letter showing, and I don’t want to risk messing it up by clicking around.

There’s no physical damage—no drops or spills—so I’m guessing this is some kind of internal or software-related issue.
Appreciate any guidance or tips you can offer!

Thanks in advance 🙏