Passport drive spinning into infinity, data still there

Hello!

I’m having a hell of a time getting my passport back to normal.

If I restart my Mac, I can plug in the hard drive and access all of the files and folders. After about 20 second the light starts flashing without me doing anything and the folders than become empty, like it’s searching. When I try to unmount the hard drive it is impossible, and, if I pull the USB and re-insert, the hard drive is not findable anymore.

Disk Utility has not worked up until this point.

Do you have any ideas on how I can safely get my information off and format the drive?

Cheers,
Rick

What macOS you are running? How is your external drive formatted?
I would suggest not to pull your external hard drive while it is plugged in since doing this can make it corrupt permanently.