Maxtor 750GB external HDD problem

Hi,

I have been using this device as a backup device for my pics, videos and documents (especially coursework for uni etc).

This has always been updated for the past while. Recently i decided to clean out my pc and reinstall windows, the intention then was to re-apply the data from the external to the pc (which is about 450gb of data).

I also have a netbook which i cleaned out also (i have the dvd restore disk for it but no external disk drive) so i copied the contents of the dvd to the external hdd via the pc and hooked up the external to the netbook so i can reinstall xp, when i finished this i had a clean xp install but when i boot up i get asked to chose between 2 xp versions (i guess the old one didnt get overwritten) the first option is the clean version, when i load the second one, i get an error in the bios saying it doesnt exist.

Anyway i found that when i tried to upload the contents of the rest of the dvd (for the drivers and utilities software) the external hdd wasnt showing up in my computer, it appears as an external device with the usual icon in the bottom left of the task bar, beside the clock.

I then hooked it up to the pc (win7) and same thing happened, it didnt show up. I checked the computer management facility and it was there but (unallocated) so i allocated it a drive letter, i can now see it in my computer on the pc, however when i try to open it, windows asks me to format the device before i can continue. I cant do this because all my info is on there. Any suggestions?

I think maybe something happened during the xp settup in the netbook, i think i may have accidently implemented some sort of fat32 partition to the hdd without knowing, but if this happened then how come xp is available on the netbook hdd without the external connected.

I know this is alot of info, if anything is unclear please let me know and i can ellaborate on this further.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.