Before I gave up, I'd try booting my system on Knoppix (Live Linux) and seeing if you can read the disk. Just download a Knoppix iso and burn yourself a CD and boot from it. It will take a long time to download (big file), but it could save your data.
I had a USB drive (Seagate) that Windows XP couldn't see at all, and Knoppix read it fine. I was able to copy all of the data to another USB drive, then partition and reformat the one with the problem, using GParted (a Linux utility).
Of course, I never really trusted the drive that failed after that...
Tranman
"Adam was not alone in the Garden of Eden, however,...much is due to Eve, the first woman, and Satan, the first consultant." Mark Twain