Can I reformat an external hdd without losing data?

I hava a Seagate goflex 500gb that is about half full with itunes and videos.  It is formatted as windows ntfs it does work on my macbook pro.  I would like to add Iphoto 11 and have the hdd refromatted mac os (journaled).  I do not have enough storage on my macbook to put the data before reformatting.  So can this be done or do I need another hdd?

No you need another HD, If you format that HD for the mac all your data will be lost.
  a 1TB external now is running around $65
Everyone should have 2 backups of their important stuff anyway, ....the motto is 2 backups is 1, and one is none. HD can and do fail. Important data that cant be replaced needs to be protected.

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