Why is my portable HDD no longer readable?

My WD portable HDD is no longer readable on my computer. Whenever I connect it, an error message pops up saying "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer". It was working fine this morning and I've never had any issues with it before. It contains a lot of documents that will take quite literally hours to copy across to another computer in order to 'repair' or 'reformat' or whatever it is that it asks me to do. I've opened disk utilities and the repair disk button isn't available, nor is the verify disk button. I've restarted the computer to no avail an have tried both USB ports. I've also checked the cable that connects the portable HDD to the computer. Nothing has changed. I also have another portable HDD of the same brand (slightly older) which is working fine. The only thing I can think of that has changed is that Time Machine did it's back up. Could it have done something? PLEASE HELP!

I've just tried it in other computers (admittedly they run Windows, but I'm 99% sure that I formatted it so that it could be used on both Windows and Mac), and tried it with a different cable that was working with another HDD. Nothing. Which leads me to believe that it might be the device itself. It's not that old though and it was just sitting on my desk so I don't understand how or why it's no longer working. If anyone knows of a way to remove/back up the disk I would greatly appreciate it. I'll be devastated if I loose all the files on it.

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Why is my portable HDD no longer readable?

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