Slave drive E freezes computer

hey all---wassup?

I have WINXP PRO.

I have 2 hard drives. a maxtor 120gig for the C (master), and an older maxtor 80 gig for my E(slave). the last 3 weeks or so, everytime i access my E drive--after a coupla minutes, my whole computer freezes to the point of a restart. BTW----The C drive is fine.

When i tried to defrag the E drive (it has half the drive defragmented in RED per the graph) yea you guessed it, it froze my computer.

fearing the worse, i tried to backup my most important files to my C drive when, yup---you guessed it--FREEZE UP time.....

I have most of the important files on a few backup DVD's but man i have 25gigs of MP3's and pictures on that sucker i need......

Anybody know of any Diagnostic utilities that will save my drive? and or tell me what's wrong with it? Is all the defragmented files on it, telling me it's dieing?

Anyway---any suggestions or comments would be appreciated---HS