I thought maybe it was because I was running Windows7 and it just didn't work.  I tried it on a Vista machine and received the same message.

So, I cracked the case and pulled out the harddrive.  I was surprised to find it was a SeaGate HDD inside this SimpleTech external harddrive.  I took the harddrive out and put it in an external harddrive enclosure.  It worked!

Lesson, it may just be the case that goes bad, try taking out the harddrive and testing it in something else before just writing it off.