How do you drive a limo onto a drive way?

Is there any way to retrieve information from an external hard drive that won't mount?

• In short my external 1gb hard drive was recently damaged lightly and will now not function as a drive. It is recognised as hardware by windows and I've tried everything to get it to mount as a letter drive (Apologies if I'm bad with terms, talking about D: and E: etc.). I've also tried a few data recovery software programs however nothing has worked due to it needing a drive to extract from. The hard drive isn't making any obscure sounds and lights up as if working normally however I've given up trying to fix it unless there's a way of making it mount as a drive I haven't thought of/heard and was just wondering if there was any way to get the information from it back before throwing it out. Thanks in advance :)

• Answer:

  open the external hdd up and place it into a differnt encloser and see if that helps if not put it in a desktop pc and see if direct connection helps