External hard drive problem

My external hard drive is recongnized by my laptop but it says it needs to format the drive before I can use it. It is already half full with data. Does this mean my files are lost and if so is their a way to get it back?

I appreciate anyones input.

Thanks,
Ann

has the drive been partitioned? and what partition is it?

I am not sure. When I bought it I just started adding things to it. Then one day last week it wouldn't let me open it. Is thier a way to retreive the data by myself?

What operating system are you using? Windows? and if so what windows?

I am using Windows Vista.

my usb did that i tried everything to get my cw off it but no luck, but there maybe away

It would be helpful If you would answear these questions first:
What happened that led to this problem?
What is the Brand and model of your external drive?
Can you right click on the drive to get more info by opening Properties (or whatever Vista calls it)?
And have you tried connecting it to another computer maybe running something other than Vista?

It is a Maxtor personal storage 3200. It has a 200 gig hard drive. I did connect it to another computer with the same results. I had about 60 gigs of Itunes music that I put back onto my laptop after the laptop crashed. After I made the download, the next time I went to open the external drive it was showing as if the drive was empty. I right click put the properties say drive empty. It wants me to format it before I can use it. Is their any way to see if the stuff I had on the drive is there?

You can run some test on your drive using Seagate's Seatools that you may have already installed, if not get it here for windows: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/suppor ... /seatools/ and run the 'Short Drive Self Test' and see if it passes the test. If the drive is still under warranty I would recommend calling Seagate's technical support and see what they can do.

You may want to try this first: http://www.stellarinfo.com/partition-recovery.htm
the demo version of this program should show you if files exist on the drive and what not.

Update me on what you did and what were the results.

I will try that and let you know how it worked. Thanks

Worst case scenario if your files were successfully downloaded to your laptop, if you have to format the drive to get it to work, you can always copy them back from your laptop.