USB external dIsk not detected after improper shutdown (PC freeze)

Hi, I had this exact same problem before and fixed it but I can’t remember how; After my computer froze [1] it doesn’t detect my USB external disk anymore, and it doesn’t show up when I boot up the laptop with a different hard drive or from a DVD boot either

I am pretty sure the problem is because the disk wasn’t unmounted before shutdown, I think there was a thing I got before that would detect that the USB drive is plugged in even when Windows can’t, and then safely dismount it, but I was really stupid and forgot to save or write down what program I used before if anyone knows what to do please tell me :(

I feel sick because I again stupidly didn’t back up [2] and it has pretty much my life on it.

[1] I think due to graphics card overheat because I was playing 2 copies of a game at once which is also when this happened last time, so unrelated reason to the disk

[2] I’ve tried to backup before and I found that copying stuff from one USB disk to another seems to be more likely to add errors than copying stuff to a computer hard disk, I don’t know if there’s any better way, I gave up because of that (and because I had this stupid dream idea that I’d get stuff organised THEN back up)

I saw @danj answered a similar problem on this site before (found via search) but couldn’t find any way to @ or PM to point to this post

Clevo P370SM-A laptop http://archive.is/QZFIL Intel Core i7 4810MQ Mob but other USB stuff does work I am using USB keyboard and mouse right now it's just that the USB disk doesn't show up at all when I connect it, I remember I fixed it somehow before by finding a program that would detect USB disks even when they aren't being found by windows, but I can't remember the name of it :(