Hard drive not recognized - any ideas?

[eyl]

Last week, I was using my external hard drive, when it suddenly gave me a "path not found" error (or something similiar). After that, when I reconnected the drive, I got the sound indicating something was conencted to the USB port but no drive letter appeared. At first, I wasn't too worried, since the computer I was using has a history of USB problems, but when I tried to connect it to another computer, the same thing happened (no drive letter assigned).

I then tried to remove the drive from its casing and conenct it directly to my computer through the IDE cable. No luck - the BIOS does not seem to recognize it.

While I don't have any critical information on the drive, I do have a lot of stuff which will take me quite a while to replace. Does anyone have a suggestion how I can recover information from the drive (if I can just get the drive recognized, I can use File Scavanger or a similiar utility to rescue the information even if the FAT is corrupted), or is it beyond hope (abrring a professional data recovery service, which is too expensive given that there's nothing critical on it)?

[Uraniun235]

It sounds pretty dead to me. The only things I can think of at this point (besides trying it in someone else's computer via IDE to be sure it's the drive) would be to find an identical-model drive and swap the circuit boards, or to stick it in a freezer for a few hours and then take it directly to your computer.

[Braedley]

Linux Live CD (distro of your choice), but it sounds pretty dead to me as well.

[White Haven]

If the BIOS itself doesn't recognize the drive after hooking it up directly, you're more or less fucked. Double-check the jumpers before you write it off entirely, but...yeah.

[eyl]

Well, I tried the freezer trick - no luck

Details on the time and location of the memorial service will be forthcoming