Maxtor One Touch II Problemo

Hello Everyone,
I've had a 300GB Maxtor One Touch external hard drive for about a year, and it just recently stopped being recognized by my computer (Dell Inspiron 6000). Usually the blue led light on the Maxtor drive flashes when working correctly; now it is only a solid blue light and won't show up anywhere on my computer. I have a lot of pictures, movies, etc that I haven't had the chance to back up yet, so, outside of sending the drive to an absurdly expensive data recovery company, what else can I do? Thanks!