You might try using the command line command fdisk /l (the lower case letter L). This will cause fdisk to access the drives and list the contents of their partition tables.

Depending on the results of that experiment, you may have lost the partition table of the drive and/or the descriptive data for the partition (i.e. FAT tables, old MS drives.) You might try using a command line copy using dd sent through a formatter to your screen to see if there is accessable data on the hard drive. You can treat the drive or a partition as a large block device and simply read a block or two to see if it is accessable. If it is there are techniques for forensic copies.