[Carl000otta]

Hello, everyone there!
I have a WD 80GB external hard drive that always works fine. However, yesterday, it became really strange after my brother had borrowed it for transferring some data. Every time I inserted it to my computer, the computer would ask me to format it. But, I cannot do that for the large amount of important data inside this hard drive. What can I do to save both of the inner data and this hard drive? Help me, please!

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Gday Carl000otta,
What type of computer do you have, a Dell/HP type or a custom build? Please give some details.
What OS is installed?

[iammykyl]

Gday Carl000otta,
What type of computer do you have, a Dell/HP type or a custom build? Please give some details.
What OS is installed?

[Carl000otta]

Gday Carl000otta,
What type of computer do you have, a Dell/HP type or a custom build? Please give some details.
What OS is installed?

It is a dell computer. I am using Windows XP OS.
Do you have any idea to my problem?

[iammykyl]

Gday.
Thanks for the update.
We need to have a look at the condition of the drive and if Data is present. Please do the following tasks.

With the computer running, plug in the external drive, When the window opens to format, click > Cancel.

Go > start, > Settings, > Control Panel, > Administrative Tools.
In the window that opens, Click > Computer Management.
in the window that opens, on the left side, Click > Disk Management.
In the Lower part of the window that opens. look for your removable drive and right click on it.
In the menu that opens, left click on Explore.

Do you see your files?

[Wendy0770]

Hello, everyone there!
I have a WD 80GB external hard drive that always works fine. However, yesterday, it became really strange after my brother had borrowed it for transferring some data. Every time I inserted it to my computer, the computer would ask me to format it. But, I cannot do that for the large amount of important data inside this hard drive. What can I do to save both of the inner data and this hard drive? Help me, please!

OK! In my personal experiences, in your case, you’d better not format this drive for the safety of your saved data. The formatting process may make things worse.
And then, you may try to restore your important data back at the help of data recovery programs.

In fact, there are many data recovery programs available online that can help restore your needed data back from your unformatted drive. But, not all of them work as efficiently as you think.

So, you are supposed to select a most proper one after doing some researching.

But, if you also cannot make a decision by your own, you can firstly take chances with some drive data recovery freeware that can work much more efficiently than some paid ones, such Recuva, TestDisk and iCare Data Recovery Free, etc.

Note: Do not save any new file on this external hard drive before you are ready to restore your data back.

Always back up everything important on different drives in the future in case of similar data recovery problems.

I hope my words can help you out!

Edited by Wendy0770, 16 September 2013 - 08:42 PM.

[Carl000otta]

OK! Thank you for your guys' nice help! I have restored all my wanted data back successfully.
Thanks a lot!

[Carl000otta]

Thank you for your detailed answer. Actually, I know nothing about the data recovery stuff and don't know what should be done after the receiving the error message. But, after reading your answer, I knew what should do next and tried your mentioned data recovery freeware that finally restored all my wanted data back.
Thank you, Wendy0770 !!!! Have a nice day!

Edited by Carl000otta, 21 September 2013 - 08:38 PM.

[iammykyl]

Gday.

Pleased problem has been solved.