How to connect an externall hard drive

hi everyone, my name is james . I recently bought a pi2 b and im trying to build a media centre but i am new to computing so my knowledge is very limited . My brother in law has given me a “Buffalo 1TB” device, but i cant find how to install it plus it just flashes green and beeps, i was thinking the later might be a power issue. The only time it stopped flashing was when i plugged it into my windows machine, but i didnt see it on any devices on my laptop. please keep your replise simple

You will likely have power problems with such a drive connected to your pi if you don’t use a powered hub. At this point, if it doesn’t work with your laptop it seems it may not be functional at all. Not sure how we can help with that.

Thanks for your reply, when I plug it in to my laptop the led stop flashing green and stays on but doesn’t show up as connected, do u need to install any drivers for it to show up or should it show up automatically?