External Hard drive showing folders not files

Hello,

For some time now i have not been able to access the files on my external hardrive. I plug it into the computer it auto runs... Than nothing. I click on folders that would have more than 500 gb in them but nothing appears except the words "This folder in empty." The strand thing is thou when i go to my computer it says under my hardrive 791 gb free of 1.81 tb. I think this means the files are still on the drive but that I cannot access them for some unknown reason? I tried the solotion in a different question of using AutoRunExterminator than running attrib -h -r -s /s /d f:\*.* (my drive being "F") But when I do so I am displayed with the message listing all of my folders

Unable to change attribute - F:\ Video
Access Denied - F:\ System Volume Information

Any thoughts? Any and all help is greatly appreciated I really just want to save my files and buy a new drive.