External Hard Drive Error - Reinstall Windows?

[andantesash]

My hard drive out my old pc with lots of important photos has stopped working and I can't open it up via my dock that its always been in since I got my laptop.

I was wondering if I could reinstall windows onto it without losing any of the files? Can this be done?

If not, is there any other suggestions?

 

[Calibretto]

Does it still spin? It's possible that it just simply died and cannot be repaired. On the other hand, it's possible that some files became corrupt and a simple OS reinstall would fix it, but you would lose all of your files if you didn't back up.