AcomData USB 2 External Hard Drive Not Working

[guyveraxe]

System:
Microsoft Windows XP
Home Edition
Version 2002
Service Pack 1

Computer:
Intel Celeron CPU 2.4 GHz
256 MB of Ram


Alright, awhile back I was having major computer problems. So I got an external hard drive, backed up everything, and reinstalled Windows XP Home. Now this is my parents computer, that they use for business, and it's the only computer we got. So they told me, just to make sure nothing goes wrong again, to just put all there stuff in the computer hard drive and run and save all my stuff in the external hard drive. There hadn't been a problem until this morning. Last night I put my computer on stand by, the hard drive still on. When I came back this morning, and tried to open the hard drive, I got the following message.

This disc in drive J is not formated.
Would you like to format it now?

Now of course I don't want to format it, because all my stuff is on this hard drive. I plugged the hard drive into our laptop to see if it came across the same problem, and it did. Is there anything I can do?

[guyveraxe]

Hello?

[GroundZero3]

please be patient as the day goes on, more members will sign on to hopefully help you with your problem

[guyveraxe]

*continues to wait*

[guyveraxe]

*sigh*

[guyveraxe]

Thanks for the help guys ⌐_⌐