Hard Drive Disconnect and now Lightroom won't Recognize It/Can't Find Photos

All my photos are saved to an external hard drive and its this external hard that Lightroom recognizes. I was just working through a photo shoot I did, and my laptop was nudge a bit and I lost the connection between my external hard drive and my laptop. I went to my desktop screen and it appeared that my external hard drive was still connected, but I thought I should properly eject it just in case. I also re-started Lightroom to give everything a better chance to work. When I started Lightroom back up again and reconnected my external hard drive, Lightroom didn't recognize the external hard drive AT ALL. Normally, if the external hard drive isn't connected, my photos/folders are at least still on the left hand side with little question marks next to them. But this time, there is nothing. Its as if I am starting from scratch. I go into my external hard drive and all of my photos are still there, organized in all the folders just as I had left them.

I have ejected my external hard drive and restarted Lightroom and my computer several times and nothing is working.

So I don't understand why Lightroom doesn't even know my photos exist anymore. Did something happen to the catalog? I have clicked on "File" and "Open Recent" to get the most recent catalog open, but that didn't do anything. When I go to "Add a Folder" it recognizes my external hard drive as an option, but won't let me select any of my folders because Lightroom already knows that they have been imported into the system.

So I am at a loss and a little stressed.... please help!