Files and folders suddenly disappeared! - WEIRD! HELP!

I've NEVER seen anything like it.
I tired to copy my pictures folder to one of my one of my internal 500 GB WD SATA drives. Everything looked fine, like it was copying over no problem. Then I click on the drive, open it, everything looks as it should, all my usual folders are there. I double-click to open the pictures folder and it's empty. I close it. Then I go to list view, click on the arrow to open the folder and the folder VANISHES BEFORE MY EYES. I clicked on the arrow to open other folders and THEY ALSO VANISHED. I tried Disk Utility, Disk Warrior, Data Rescue II, and nothing works. But the disk still mounts. I click info, and it tells me there's over 200GB of data being stored. But when I open the disk, it says there's ZERO data.
I don't know whether I should reformat the drive, or take it to a data rescue place. Any suggestions would be very appreciated!

Hard drives may, but they generally do not have bad blocks. There are programs you can use (Speedtools, TechTool Pro) to scan for bad media or weak sectors.
Zero all may, or may not, map out your bad blocks. My experience is that if there are any, save yourself and a) get a new drive just in case; b) do 7-way write erase, which will map those out; c) try 3rd party utilities (TechTool Pro, Disk Warrior, Data Rescue II even).
Once bad blocks are fixed, you could be and should be fine for years.
You can check system log, SMART tests, and find out if any spare blocks have been used, how many left.
First question: when and with what did you last repair the disk directory? and don't rely on just Apple First Aid, it misses a number of potential and real problems.

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