If you haven't got in touch with a data recovery expert yet, the best thing you could do right now is to take a picture of the damage and post it on here. It's quite possible that it's not actually fucked at all, but just some of the internals have got damaged, especially if it's USB powered.
Whatever you do, don't try and make it work any more - every time it tries to power up, it could be destroying data. There are ways of recovering drives, and to be honest, it would be really terrible luck if it was that badly damaged that you couldn't recover the data. But the fact that it's able to power on is encouraging - and it does point at the drive not being terribly damaged.
I'd certainly avoid the suggestions of freezing the drive - mainly because it may do more damage than good. It's fine and well if it's just a broken drive, but where irreplacable data is concerned, it's better not to fuck with 'man in the pub' cures.
If you can't afford the services of data recovery experts - then you could have a look at
GRC?|?Hard drive data recovery software?? . It could do the trick, and there are plenty of testimonials about it. But I'd strongly suggest not considering it unless you really have no other alternatives. Whatever you do, don't let anyone touch it who doesn't clearly know what they're doing - although I've fixed a broken drive before, you don't want people who can repair things near the drive, you want people that can get the data intact from the drive.
As for recommendations for backup - it's a tough subject. I'd suggest having a read of this -
Long-term backup [dive into mark] - and then deciding from there. CD/DVD based backup isn't the best in terms of life, although I imagine making three DVD backups using different media should be a fairly reliable method. It goes without saying that you should always keep one copy 'off-site' too.
From what little I know about backups, you should always try to ensure that the files are kept in an open source format too. I was reading something a while ago about the problems with older software, because the files generated were in a non-open format and thus it was difficult to actually read and convert the files in question.
You could also subscribe to an online service to backup the most important things too.
Hope it turns out fine
