External USB storage device problem!

Hi,

I have an external 80GB USB mass storage device (IBM travelstar) which is a USB to IDE disk. I purchased it over a year ago from eBay. I use it with my Acer travelmate 290 Windows XP laptop and have successfully it used on WinXP home desktop and my sister's Compaq Vista laptop. On my laptop it uses the letter H.

However, all of a sudden, yesterday it developed a snag as the screen froze and i unplugged it. a couple of messages popped up saying 'Delayed write failed' and H:\$hift has been lost.
Now when I connect the USB device, it shows up under usb controllers in Device Manager (as USB mass storage device) and even on Safely Remove Hardware. However, the drive doesnt appear on My Computer, nor in disk management. There is also this noise that comes from the drive when it is connected to the computer. The light is also on on the USB while connected to the computer.

I have checked it on the other computers, and the same problem exists, and there is no problem with the USB ports as other devices connected to them work normally.

I have tried uninstalling the device and reinstalling it and also tried REGEDIT but it still does not work.

I understand there could be a problem with the device itself ... but I would like to know if there is any way I could recover all my files from the device or make it work again ... please help as I'm very upset about this since the device has all my pictures, home videos and other important documents.

Thanks in advance

Thank you.... I'll certainly try that.
Fingers crossed.