Photography For Dummies : Worst Nightmare(External Hard Drive Cant be Read)

A photographer worst nightmare just occured to me yesterday.
My external hard drive is not recognizeable at my computer.
No icon pop up,imagining how much time and effort have been spent and used to capture all of the picture have resulted a sleepless night yesterday.
All the picture since day one of digital photography might end up forever lost.
The worst part is I have just thought of buying another external hard drive for back up purpose but due to the mentality "naaah,that wont happen to me" I have been dragging the process in hope that it really wont happen to me.arrrrrgggghhhhhhh!!!!..
Today I'm going to send the laptop to my friend/partner in crime Farid to look for the issue,either laptop or the hard drive itself.
Funny thing is it doesnt appear in my computer but under device and printer my hard drive is there,but i cant eject it nor open the file.
I have a feeling its a bug and hope that that bug is preventing the pc to read the hard drive and that my picture is still in tact.
The putrajaya,the museum and the chinese cemetry that going to be post by today and tommorow is still there because I have transfered it to the desktop.
Have you guys encounter similar issue?I hope no,but if yes please do share with me the solution.

And for the new photographers out there,please do back up your precious work of art.Dont have the "naaah,that wont happen to me" attitude because it can happen.

I'll follow up with the museum picture later..

Update:my external hard drive is not saveable.it will be sent to the factory and as per the shop,most likely i'll get a new one(no data saved).hmm..a lesson for all to learn..always backup you data in 2 different location.luckily my wife manage to save some of the shot for printing on the thumbdrive..

update as of 20/1/2012-external hard drive is not saveable.I have to send it back to the factory and they will diognise it but as per the shop advice,they might just replace it.I have bought a new external hard drive,Western Digital 1TB external hard drive so that I can backup all my job from this point onward,a lesson that you can avoid learning on your own..BACKUP YOUR WORK!!!