If it's an external Hard Drive then I suggest you to plug it into another USB Port or eSATA port, if you get the same issue try plugin your external HDD into another Computer just to discard that the issue is on the external Hard Drive itself.
If the issue still remains then is more likely that the content inside the external HDD has being corrupted and you might need to format the HDD if you want to use it again, of course after formatting your HDD you will now definitely loose all your data.
You can try using recovery tools, however in my experience Recovery tools are useless in most cases, but here is one:
http://www.piriform.com/recuva
This tool is mainly for recovering deleted files, but you can give it a try, you have nothing to loose.
You can also check this article from Microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/835840/en-gb
P.S. Malware also tends to corrupt Hard Drives, USB Keys and many other storage devices.
Note: It will be useful if you specify on your question whether it is a secondary hard drive, an external hard drive or a partition.
Note 2: It is very unlikely that the HDD or the partition that is presenting the issue is the one where the OS is installed, because then your Computer wouldn't even boot or it will freeze, that's why i'm guessing it could be a secondary drive, a secondary partition or an external drive that is presenting the issue.
Good luck,
Best regards,
David Berger.