External HDD Always ask to be formatted upon connection

[GByte]

I have a Maxtor 200GB PATA133 External HDD. I had it in the original casing but the connector was bad which caused it to register only in device manager. i tested it out and it still worked so i then got a new casing for it. after using the hdd for a while..i tried to connect it now and it it says i have to format it before using...but i dont want to delete all the data
is there any hope for this or should i call it quits

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Go into device manager and find the drive, see if it is marked as RAW, if so, then the data is gone, but there is a chance that you can pull it, there should be software out there to rebuild the partition tables, I am just unsure of any names.

 

[GByte]

I'm not sure which section to find if its marked as raw but what i gathered in properties section:
General: device is working properly
Volumes(After i populate it):
-Disk: Disk1
-Type: Basic
-Status: Online
-Partition style: Master Boot Record (MBR)
-Capacity: 194480mb
-Unallocated: 6mb
-Reserved: 0mb

I tried updating the driver and it says its up to date
When i try to access it from computer it says its unaccessible, the file directory is corrupted and unreadable
Where do i go from here??

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

You will need to access the Administrative tools under Control Panel, then, go to disk managment, it will list the drives there, and the file system they are using.

 

[GByte]

I found it and unfortunately its marked as RAW so ill format the disk...thanks again for the help

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Sorry that I couldn't have been of more help, but it's sad when a drive is marked raw like that, but strange things happen, sorry you lost your data, I know the feeling, awhile back I lost a bit over 1TB worth of data, drive was marked RAW, just came outta no where to.

 

[GByte]

oh dam thats crazy...it funny thought, but at least the drive is reusable after formatting

 

[-RockMan-]

If anything should ever happen to the hdd and you have a little time left to pull what is off of it use this:
Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File and Disk Recovery - Free Download
Used this once to recover a few things off of a dying hdd last year, it will help out greatly and it's free.