Windows 7: External Hard Drive Crashed -.-

A couple months ago, I backed up all my files (pictures, videos, documents, music) to an external hard drive my dad bought a while back. I had to factory reset my HP since it wasn't working well. About a week ago, I went to retrieve all of the files only to have my computer tell me i couldn't access the files unless I formatted the drive. My computer is less frequently able to recognize when I plug it in and I'm not sure what I can do to get the hundreds of thousands of pictures off before I lose them for good. Help?

If you can access the drive, download and run either this;

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywi...y-software.htm
<http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/free-data-recovery-software.htm>


Or this;

Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File and Disk Recovery - Free Download
<http://www.piriform.com/recuva>

In many ( most) circumstances it is better to make an image of the drive and then recover from the restored image on a different drive. This prevents your drive being even more badly damaged by trying to recover from it. That is what I would do. The data recovery programs noted will recover from a restored image.

You can make an image of the drive using this;

http://www.todo-backup.com/products/home/
<http://www.todo-backup.com/products/home/>

Regards....Mike Connor