External Hard drive Problems!! Please Help!

Hi! So my external hard drive isn't opening on my computer or anyone else's computer anymore. My hard drive used to work just fine with my computer. I know all the usb plugins work because I use them with camera's and I used my brothers external hard drive to see if his worked on my computer. And his hard drive had worked with my computer. So I pretty much got it narrowed down to just my hard drive that isn't working. I opened up the case and everything looked fine.. nothing looked broken or loose. The light on the front turns on when I plug it into my computer and it makes noises like its trying to open. When I plug it in the usb symbol shows up in the bottom right corner like normal but my hard drive doesn't pop open or show up under the hard drives. I just don't know what could be wrong with it. I'm afraid that I might have deleted something off of my hard drive that is keeping it from opening. I have very sentimental photos on there that I would hate to lose!! If anyone has any suggestions that will help with out losing my photos please let me know. Thank you in advance!!