PC hardware: Any easy/inexpensive ways to retrieve external drive data?

Any easy/inexpensive ways to retrieve external drive data?

I have several external usb hard drives that I use with my notebook when necessary. One of my Western Digital usb drives is suddenly not being recognized by Windows XP. The comnputer ''beeps'' when I plug the drive in just as it always did and then Windows wants to install the drive. It is unable to do so. Although not accessible in Windows explorer, it is seen in the device manager and marked with a yellow question mark. The propoerties there state that no drivers have been installed for the drive. My other Western Digital usb drive has a blue light that comes on when I turn the power on. This drive's light does not come on when I press the button. I have tried using a different usb cable and a different power supply but the same result as above. Unfortunately, I have been using the problem usb drive to store a couple hundred GB of family pictures I scanned in to the computer. Because my TDK usb DVD burner will not write a DVD of data from an external drive, I had no way to back these files up to optical disks and really need to save as much of this data as possible. Any ideas to get the drive working again or if necessary, where I can have that done as cheaply as possible would me greatly appreciated.hh