Unable to access Hard disk.

i am unable to access my portable external hard drive (Spinpoint MP0402H 40GB hard drive) it is installed correctly but i keep getting an error message that the 'file or directory is corrupt ad unreadable' the disk was working fine on Monday 19th May, this problem started suddenly yesterday Thursday 21st May. I really need to get some important data off the disk. right now the harddisk is in a freezer but apparently this is only a temporary solution to run the harddrive long enough to retrieve data (haven't yet tried to retrieve data though, the drive is still in the freezer). is there any way to salvage my hard drive and still get my data (don't want to format it either) or have i already doomed it by trying to freeze it? somebody HELP i need that info like yesterday!!

I have this problem with my hard disk. The computer is not able to detect the hard disk but I can access it as it says a driver problem suring the intallation