I have this external harddrive that I use from time to time, but today, my craptop sees it, but it says “Searching for content…” for minutes on end and I can’t access my files. It’s worked fine a few months ago, but it’s being a prick to me now.
Does the external hard drive still work with other computers? That’d be the first test; HDD’s have a limited lifespan, and it could be that your external HDD is dying.
different usb ports?
As it´s already been said, try it on another PC, if problem persists, take the external cover off and insert the actual hard drive in to a PC and see if it works (Sometimes, crappy cases just die, but the hard drive can be ok)