having an issue with getting a WD drive to show up - its brand new

Most likely you have not partitioned or formatted it:

Drive Partition and Format Pre-El Capitan

1. Open Disk Utility in the Utilities' folder.
2. After Disk Utility loads select the new drive (out-dented entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the side list.
3. Click on the Partition tab in Disk Utility's main window toolbar.
4. Set the number of partitions to one (1) from the Partition Scheme drop-down menu.
5. Set the Format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)
6. Click on the Apply button.
7. Quit Disk Utility after the process is completed.