My device is not being recognized on my desktop.

I plugged in my WD My Passport and all of a sudden it wont show up on my desktop or in my finder window. I am running a macbook pro and have never had this problem. Like most, all my images for business (I am a photographer) and all my personal photos are on there and I am just about in full panic mode.

I went to disk utility and it IS recognized there so that makes me feel a little better but still not very good. I have NOT tried to "repair" like suggested for fear that it will erase my data. I have no idea if repair is like reformatting it or something…

What should I do? Should try to repair? Any advice you could give me would be greatly appreciated. i am not a saavy person at all, unfortunately.