I have been using this WD hard drive (1 TB) for several months now without problems. My main computer crashed with a little help from my fists, now I am trying to rebuild an older computer, it was partitioned (i guess) with both Linxus and DOS, and the program files and all my original computer back up folders, videos and pics are stored on my external harddrive. When I plugged it into the DOS computer, it does have windows XP, but an error messgae popped up stating the e/drive needed to be formatted. I had never seen this error messgae and did not format the drive, but it wouoldn't allow me to access the drive. I tried again after re booting the computer, and I wasn't sure what the formatting involved so I hit YES, a WARNING message popped up telling me all my files would be erased if I formatted, and I immediately hit NO and unpllugged my drive. Now I can't see any files on the drive, although it recognizes it on other computers, it will not show the space capicity or free space, and it says it in NTFS format. Did me plugging this drive into a DOS computer change the settings somehow from FAT32 to NTFS? and if so How do I save my files? I did not format it, so I don't believe the files have been erased or it should show the free space as 1TB, right? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, I will die if I lost all thiese files

Hive info on the HDD is protected. Missing drive info? That's why your getting that error message to format it but you don't. What OS did you have prior?

See this link from MS for the fix using chkdsk /p
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/156640

Windows XP

Hypothetically, if I plugged this drive into a computer with no compatable drivers would it change my files on this external drive to RAW?

You can use any XP box to access the data. Unless you had something funky on it?

Hey

From that reason you back up your data to keep your files safe at any time ( from now one please use a software who has online storage feature like Dmailer Backup Software.
Ok if you can find any data you can download a data recovery program or mail me i will help you find you and you can recover you lost data .
In other way to recover your data it doesn't cross my mind.