Hi Paigehs,
I've lost a hard drive before. It's no fun. I hope your able to recover your photos.
Dose the drive now make any new noises? like a constant clicking or a grinding sound? if so you most likely need data recovery.
If it dose not make any new nosies; You can check to see if the hard drive shows up as a usb device:
go to the menu bar
click on the apple menu
chose about this mac
when the window pops up, click on more info.
system profiler will open, on the left hand column click on "USB", under hardware
see if the hard drive shows up at all as a device. a lacie hard drive might be labeled "lacie". It might also show up as a 'un-kown device'
if the hard drive dose not show up at all as a USB device in system profiler. you can try rebooting the computer. leaving the hard drive unplugged for more then 4 minutes. you could also try another USB port on the computer. or Another USB cable.
a really good test, would be plugging the drive into another computer.
If the hard drive dose not show up at all in system profiler. you might want to consider a local repair shop.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1434 can be used to locate the closest repair shop.
If the hard drive shows up in disk utility, but can't be repaired. Or mounted a program like drive savers 3 might be able to recover data off the hard drive.
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php can be used to download a demo and or purchase the software. It may get a little it may get allot. But it's only going to work if the drive shows up at all.
If all else fails there are companies that offer data recovery:
http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/
