External Hard Drive Problem!

Hello! I have a Maxtor external hard drive, which I have formatted for both MAC and PC (by partitioning). In the past, it worked great in both, but I haven't used it in awhile. I'm trying to get some files off of it to make a demo reel, but suddenly neither my MAC or PC will recognize it.

In the MAC, I have opened Disk Utility and it does not show up on the left hand side. However, the light in the hard drive is on and it sounds like it's trying to work.

In the PC, the light doesn't even come on, the drive won't even boot up.

At this point, I'm thinking perhaps I formatted it wrong initially, but that was quite sometime ago. I want to know if there is any way to get my files off of my hard drive without having to buy expensive software.

HELP! Thanks!