just a thought, but can you copy from that drive to another drive? Maybe you can get the files off but its having problems reading and writing from the same drive?

I started doing very rigorous on- and off-site backups (and also to the cloud now) after having something similar happen to me with a crucial ZIP disk; 100 Megs. I sent that to drive savers and they were able to get everything off that I needed. It was an expensive lesson for a poor graduate student, but at least I learned relatively early to do regular backups.

Good luck
pcwa