Hi,
How many files were found? If there were a lot (e.g. 100,000) then it could slow this part down.
Is it possible that the external drive has gone to sleep? Can you still see the light flashing and hear the drive spinning?
It may be better to kill this search and start fresh. If you follow these instrucitons:
http://forums.getdata.com/computer-d...ard-drive.html then you should get the files back within a few hours.