Can no longer access my external hard drive

My husband I and switched to a Mac after using Windows machines for years. We have a Free Agent external hard drive to store ALL of our music files and, most importantly, our photos. When we first got the Mac, we plugged in the FreeAgent and it worked fine (obviously, I couldn't write to it, only read the files, but that was basically fine). In the last few days, I realized I can't access the drive at all, no icon, nothing under Computer, no ability in iTunes or iPhoto, nothing. I unplugged its and powered both the Mac and the FreeAgent down, and then reconnected everything and that did not help. Any thoughts or suggestions? It would break my heart to lose my photos. I have a lot of them backed up on removable media, but I take a lot of pictures and stand to lose hundreds.
This is a possible duplicate post, so please bear with me. Our Mac was purchased at the end of May 2012, but we have not upgraded to Mountain Lion. As the Genius in the store put it the night we bought the computer: it's better we learn our way around the system as it is now without all the extra bells and whistles.

Thank you so much for your response. I tried your steps this evening...both of them, and still don't find the FreeAgent drive. I don't have my Windows laptop here at home, but will bring it over so that I can connect the external drive and make sure that there's still DATA on the darn thing. If all the files are still there and can be accessed through a Windows machine, then I guess all is not lost. I'll have to look into purchasing a new external drive to work with the Mac now.
I apologize for the lack of info on my system. I am brand new to Mac - as stated, we only purchased our first-ever Mac back at the end of May and then I almost immediately started a new job, so I haven't really had time to get to know the ins-and-outs of the system. For instance, I don't know where to look to get OS info..all I can tell you is that the machine is 4 months old and I haven't installed Mountain Lion yet. I don't have a boatload of apps installed either - pretty much what came with the computer with the additon of MS Office for the Mac, which I needed for work and school.
The external hard drive was initially used with Windows machines, so when it WAS working with the Mac, I wasn't able to write to it, but the files were all there. Because there are days at a time now where I don't come near the computer, I can't say when the FreeAgent stopped working with the Mac.
Thanks for your help, and if you have any other suggestions, I'd be very appreciative.

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Product ID:          0x0951
Vendor ID:          0x059f (LaCie)
Version:           0.00
Serial Number:          152D203380B6
Speed:          Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer:          LaCie
Location ID:          0x24300000 / 4
Current Available (mA):          500
Current Required (mA):          2
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#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            999.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

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Nathan Miah wrote:
Is there absolutely anything else I could do to sort this such as phone Apple Support
If you want.
or maybe install Snow Leopard using the disc it came on with my Mac and just set it up from a Time Machine Backup on my external hard drive (since it works under SL)?
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It's not just backups on the drive either, there are other important things on there, so why won't they show?
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I just really don't understand how this happened. Could it not be an issue with WD because they haven't issued firmware to support Lion yet?
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Can no longer access my external hard drive

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