I'm trying to recover my stuff from my book

i’ve had a password protected WD my book essentials 1.5 TB over 3 years and never had a problem until a couple of months ago.

i couldn’t logging and when i could my computer would freeze/slow down and would not allow me to do anything. after restoring my laptop i updated the my book and when i tried to retrieve my stuff it says that it’s empty.

 i have asked friends and family and they all had tried to help but nothing has happened it doesn’t even let me back up anything anymore.

can someone please help me i have a lot of precious items in there i would like to retrieve my wedding pictures/videos i’m at my last straw and i don’t have the money to go to a professional?

Welcome to the Community and sorry to read you’re going through this. 

How did you try to restore the files? Did you manually navigate the hard drive without using the backup software?