HELP! Seagate ext. HD data recovery

Ok, so this is what happens when you're not careful!:cry
I found that my computer's XP program wasn't official, so went ahead and bought an official CD. I had backed up everything- both using a mirror and copying all data files- to my Seagate external drive.

After backing up, I got interrupted, and put it off a couple of days. I came back, started up the install, chose to wipe, etc. Everything went groovely along with the install. But, since I didn't see the Seagate on the hutch, figured one of the kids had borrowed it.

Holy catastrophy, Batman! It had been moved to under the desk by one of the kids, and now it shows "The disk in drive D is not formatted. Would you like to format it now?"

I have 3 years worth of client files, personal files, family pictures- but the worst is the client files!

What now????confused

Thanks, folks!

 

If you try right clicking my computer, then disk management, can you see the drive ?
If you can you might be able to click on the drive,explore, and see if you can find any files.

 

I get the same message about it not being formatted, and would I like to format it now... By the way, the file system field is blank- it's neither NTFS nor FAT32- not even CDFS like my CD ROM.

 

Before you format it, there are Microsoft help pages

http://www.ntfs.com/partition-recovery-concepts.htm

 

You will find a lot of information, and links to microsoft items on this issue, here

http://www.ntfs.com/

 

If you decide to format it , try using Seagates software tools, downloadable from seagate support.
If the master boot record has been corrupted, I refered someone to a free download from majorgeeks, and I will see if I can find my notes, and come back to you with it.

 

This was the url.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/iRecover_d2420.html

 

I don't want to format it, I'm hoping to recover the data! Help!:cry

 

That last free download is pretty good, on another thread, someone got back into their hard disk, with a similar problem, as you have.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/iRecover_d2420.html

 

Thanks! I've downloaded it and started the scan. This looks like it will take a huge amount of time, as I've been scanning for over 3 hours and it's only showing 1% completion! I'll report back later on the success or lack thereof...

 

Good luck, perhaps a long time, but, how much time to remake the lost files.
Worth the effort, I would think.