Windows 7: Paused BitLocker and now unresponsive

Hey, I had started to encrypt my External Hard Disk using Bit Locker, but it was taking too long, so I pressed Pause. It became unresponsive and after a long time, I restarted my computer. Now it says that my External is locked. But when I try to unlock it, it again becomes unresponsive, and I'm unable to access the data on the External. Someone please help me, as there's loads of important data in the External!

Well, I'll guess I'll be the bearer of bad news. If the encryption process did not complete then chances are the whole thing is corrupted and unrecoverable. The data is lost, in other word. You should not encrypt a full hard drive only a small partition that has no data on it to begin with. Only then move your private information that needs to be encrypted to that partition. Furthermore, never NEVER interfere with the encryption process, don't even touch or use the computer during encryption. Don't care how long it takes, if you don't let it finish it can become corrupted.

Yeah, guess I learnt that the hard way. Thanks anyway.