External HD Problem

My laptop (mac book and G4) does not reconize my external hd. Heres the issue yesterday I was doing some recording off my external. The pro tools software had crashed so I had to power down the my system but when I did my external wouldn't come up, so after about 5 minutes of waiting to see if anything would happen with my hd I get a pop-up that says "This computer can not read" then I had 3 options to click on "Initialize" "Cancel" and "Eject"..

This is a major problem for me since I have about 7 songs finished for an album that Im recording, and no I havent backed it up. I know "Idiot".. BIG Lesson learned

Any suggestions.. Need some help...

I think at some point or other we've all lost something we haven't backed up.

I'm not great at Mac troubleshooting but the only thing I can think of is connecting the drive, then powering it up, open Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities) and try unmounting and mounting from there. There may be various other options for troubleshooting within Disk Utility but I'm at work and can't check.

Good luck!

We need to hear that album when it's done too!! ;D