60 GB external Firewire Drive Won't Mount

I have a 60GB external Firewire Drive that I have been using for a long time. I just turned on the computer and it won;t mount. I opened up the Disk Utility and I see that on the left side it says "57.3 GB Maxtor." I repaired permissions and verify disk. It still won't mount.
I don't want to have to erase it if possible. There are files I need on that drive. How can I get it to mount so I can grab some files off of it and move it to another drive?
Thanks in advance

Hi Edwurd,
What the message is telling you is that Disk Utility and the "underlying task," the Unix utility fsck, can't repair the volume.
Time for stronger medicine if the data is critical. There are commercial products that work differently and can recover disks when fsck can't. Look at Disk Warrior or Drive Genius. BUT... given that Disk Utility thinks it's a "non HFS volume," I wouldn't be optimistic.
If the external drive's data is unimportant - e.g., a backup you could rewrite - then see if Disk Utility can repartition and erase the drive. If only the catalog or partition map is bad, this will get you a working drive. But if you can't repartition with Disk Utility, suspect a hardware malfunction and check your warranty.
Good luck,
John

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