Hard drive problems - cannot access files

[alacritous]

Hello,

I'm having difficulty accessing files from a hard drive. I've done this before, so I'm really stumped on why it won't work now... anyway, here's some things I've noticed.

- My BIOS recognizes it. So does Windows and Linux. It just won't connect.
- When I go into Windows, it recognizes it. It installs the drivers from Windows. Then, it says my hardware was setup properly. Well, it never appears in "My Computer".
- When I go into Linux, it recognizes it. I mount it, but it doesn't work. It has problems mounting it due to file format. It also says something like "block device cannot be mounted" or something...

I went into a Linux IRC channel, explained the problem, had some people help me, but it wouldn't work. They basically ended up saying it was corrupted or something. Well, I was hoping to try to narrow it down to actually being 100% corrupted or what not... and if it is, I was wondering if there are any tools that would connect to the corrupted drive so I could at least look, or copy, files from it.

I'm not sure what files are on there, but I am looking for some files and think it may be on here. They're not super important, but I would like them. Maybe I should format the drive using a real easy/basic format, then use a program, that is made for this stuff, to copy files. I don't know...

EDIT: It is an old hard drive... not sure how old, but I'd say at least 2 years. So it might have died. I feel the motor spin, or something move in it... so I don't think dead as in won't turn on, but...

Thanks in advance,
alacritous