My computer Seagate external drive will not open. Has anyone had this problem and what is the solution?

Does it spin up? I mean, does it sound the same (if it is a disc and not solid state), or is it silent?

I think it spins when trying to access it.

There are so many different variables in this, e.g., how old is the drive? And there are so many different outcomes to further questions I might ask or suggestions I might make, like asking you to try it in a different drive enclosure. Try asking Copilot or ChatGPT or Gemini. It'll be much quicker than asking on here.

OK Dave thanks. I have taken it to Lightning in Duke street and they tried to fix it but cannot, They did not charge me for trying and told me it needed to be sent away to some where that can extract the info but it might be expensive.

Drives don't last forever, unfortunately. As a replacement, consider getting a RAID system (two or multiples of two drives), or just two separate drives where you periodically back up one to the other. Another alternative might be to use cloud options. For example, you wondered what use Copilot might be. For the personal account, it comes with 1TB of space. There are so many other options, though (Gemini, PCloud, etc.)

Thanks for that Dave,