linux wont recognize external usb hard drive?
 

the 1TB FAT usb hard drive that i have plugged in was working properly and then just randomly quit working.. i've heard of downloading the centOS 5 NTFS 3-g .. will this help me ?

When you say "randomly quit working," what exactly is happening?

I think the first thing to do is make sure the drive is still functional. My gut response is that this may be hardware.

I'd find another computer, preferably a Windows box because of the FAT, and test the drive.

You might also try running fsck on it (or a chkdsk in Windows).