Question : Problem: Failed Drive-Retrieve Files

I have a Maxtor 300 GB backup drive that has failed.  I have run File Scavenger on it several times.  The only thing that it recovers is some .mpg files.  None of the data or the backups I have have been running to the drive appear.  The drive is no longer recognized by my machine when I plug in the USB but I can get it to come up in Device manager as a drive.  Is there any other process I may be able to use to recover these files?

Answer : Problem: Failed Drive-Retrieve Files

Agree with the previous comments from dhollander and Kutyi

Further details here:
http://www.tech-faq.com/hard-drive-recovery.shtml
http://askbobrankin.com/hard_drive_makes_a_clicking_sound.html

This page will help you with data recovery.
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Misc/Q_21860487.html?sfQueryTermInfo=1+data+recoveri

If you can see the drive but can't copy files from it you can try GetDataBack for recovery. There's a free trial version which shows what can be recovered:
http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm

As already state above, if you have critical data on that HDD do not use it at all except for recovery of data. Every time the drive starts you risk a MORE catastrophic failure.

Depending upon how critical those data are, if you don't want to risk data loss you shouldn't use the drive at all. In that case you need to pay big money to someone like http://www.gillware.com/  for forensic data recovery.

For future reference:
Disk write caching
http://mywitsend.co.nz/computer-stuff/hardware/53

Also check these:

Getdataback
http://www.getdataback.com

Active Partition Recovery
http://www.partition-recovery.com/products.htm

Easis data recovery
http://www.easis.com/

Useful FREE tools:
http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/datarecovery.shtml

Partition Table Doctor
http://www.ptdd.com/