HDD not formatted?

i just reinstalled my copy of windows xp on my MAXTOR 31024h2 10 GB hard drive. Now when I want to play movies from my WD hd, a box says the disk drive is not formatted. I have very important stuff on that hard drive and I want to make sure the drive is not messed up.

can someone please tell me why this suddenly popped out and if there is a way that I can fix it?

any help would be appreciated

thnx

 

Ill let u know anything that i find out about formating hard drive so as not to lose your info Hank

 

make sure the disk is set up to slave or cable select this happened to me when i bought an hd external enclosure i had it on master and it said it needed format but i changed it to slave and it worked

 

both my drives are set up to cable select tho

 

i was always told, to set one HD to master and the other to slave, and im having no problms with doing that, i have a 160GB HD set to master and a 80GB HD set to salve and i can get to both with no problems.