Try powering it from a separate power supply like another battery or a bench power supply.
Sometimes the equipment is not detected until the battery is charged, I have a Sony Ereader that is like this. When I first got and pluged it in it was not detected so i took it back, all they did was charge it from a separate source and when I got home and plugged it in lo and behold there it was on the computer, since then I have noticed that if the battery goes to low it is not registered by the computer until the battery reaches a certain level now it is getting older that is more frequent.