Can't Access Files on Maxtor Firewire Drive

[p_l]

I'm sure it's my fault, but of the the blue, from one day to the next, all of a sudden I can't access any files (mostly finished videos) I keep on my Maxtor 120GB Firewire Drive. Whenever I click on it now, it brings up a dialog asking me to format it, with NTFS as my only option, but of course that would wipe out ALL of my data.

Although I run XP and one of my internal drives is NTFS (the one I use as my video editing playground) I had always kept the external Maxtor formatted as FAT32, so I could connect it to Windows 98, etc.(which can't see NTFS) systems to play my finished projects, which are never bigger than 4GB anyway. And sure enough, when I try that, the Windows 98SE computer can access and play the files fine, but as soon as I reconnect the drive to my XP computer, it sees the drive, but I can't access any files, and it brings up that dialog telling me to format the drive, with the only option as NTFS.

I'm stumped. Your expertise would be appreciated.

[gmatov]

Since there doesn't seem to be much choice, have you the room to transfer the files, format, and recopy?

The strangest thing is that NTFS systems can read FAT32, but not vice versa.

I see no other alternative, and if you bought a 120 external, you probably have way less onboard storage, so may not be able to copy.

Is the device hermetic, as someone called it, or simply an enclosure? If you can attach it to your IDE or ATA card, assuming you have one, you may be able, again, to transfer them.

[p_l]

Still no joy, and it's weird because my Win98SE computer has no problem with it, and my XP computer sees the drive, but it just keeps giving that format dialog.

But here's something else: through Control Panel>Admistrative Tools>Computer Management>Disk Management, I can not only see the drive, but the part that has all my data shows as "Healthy (Active)", but it's the only drive that doesn't show a file system. My other drives show up as either FAT 32 of NTFS, but this one has nothing listed at all under File System. Maybe there's something I need to do for my XP machine to be able to see or identify the drive as FAT 32? But what, I don't know...

Also, in Control Panel>Admistrative Tools>Computer Management>Disk Management, I formatted a small unused (empty) 500MB section of the drive to FAT 32, and lo and behold, I can access that no problem though My Computer on my XP machine. So it's just the section of the drive that has all my data that I can't access, presumably because my XP machine can't identify its file system, so that's why it asks me to format it. But as I mentioned, my Win98SE machine has no problem with it.

How do I get my XP computer to identify that part of the drive as the FAT 32 volume it is?