Maxtor One touch 111 problems

My Maxtor One touch 111 is about 16 months old, worked perfectly yesterday, but today its lights up, gets warm but is not recognised by any computer... i use Macs but tried it on PCs as well.. same problem.
Spoke to Tech support ...they took the easy option and reckon it's dead ( probably because it's out of warranty)
Anyone had the same experience or managed to solve the problem of how to extract the data?

Try removing it from it's case and connecting it internally, you have nothing to loose at this stage.
I hear about so many of these Maxtor's and Iomega drives failing, I wonder if it's the case's internal connection that is the problem.
I have 3 Welland cases, (the ones you buy seperate and add own drive to) 1 is over 3 years old 1 about 2 years and 1 I got about 6 months ago, all USB & eSATA connections, plus a WD 500 USB & Seagate 250 USB, and never had a day's trouble with any of them. The USB only ones are about 15 months old.