Here is the error from dmesg I’ve got when trying to mount external HDD:

[345826.197335] EXT3-fs error (device sdd1): ext3_check_descriptors: Block bitmap for group 1920 not in group (block 0)!
[345826.198130] EXT3-fs (sdd1): error: group descriptors corrupted

Trying to mount as ext2 didn’t change anything:

[346348.544459] EXT2-fs (sdd1): error: ext2_check_descriptors: Block bitmap for group 1920 not in group (block 0)!
[346348.544470] EXT2-fs (sdd1): group descriptors corrupted

fsck didn’t want to help and was stopping after this:

% fsck.ext3 /dev/sdd1           
e2fsck 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
fsck.ext3: Group descriptors look bad... trying backup blocks...
fsck.ext3: A block group is missing an inode table while checking ext3 journal for /dev/sdd1

What you can try to do to recover at least some data is to use backup superblock. Run mke2fs command (as root):

% mke2fs -n /dev/sdd1
mke2fs 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
24420352 inodes, 97677200 blocks
4883860 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=4294967296
2981 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
8192 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks: 
	32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208, 
	4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968

Notice the numbers at the end, let’s try fsck with one of the superblock backups:

% fsck.ext3 -b 71663616 -y /dev/sdd1
e2fsck 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
/dev/sdd1 was not cleanly unmounted, check forced.
Resize inode not valid.  Recreate? yes
 
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
...

It did work for me, good luck and let me know how did you do!