External 1tb Mybook unreadable?

while I was watching some videos from my internal hard drive my computer restarted to install updates. Once the desktop loaded afterwards, windows explorer was very laggy and unresponsive. So, I unplugged my external hd and it solved the issue. But, now when I plug it back in I get a message box saying I need to format it before I can use it and I can't browse it at all. Also It doesn't show up as Mybook(L:) anymore. Now it's Local Disk(L:). I've tried plugging it into multiple usb ports and still the same issue. I have the entire drive completely full of irreplaceable data, so formatting is absolutely out of the question. Another odd thing is that the Western Digital Smartware drive still shows up as it usually does. I'm currently using Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. Anyone have a fix for this issue?