FAT formatted external hard drive is not 'readable by this computer'

Hello support community
The problem: when I insert my 'FAT' formatted external hard drive (Samsung M3) into my mac book pro it comes up with the error message that says "the inserted disk is not readable by this computer" and I therefore cannot access the files.
The story (potential further details):
1. I had a problem with my mac where it took hours to load each time I turned it on, would only work when power was plugged in etc. so I had to reformat my mac hard drive (when I tried to veriify it said repair, that wouldn't work). So i'm starting with a recently reformatted, clean mac.
2. Before doing this I reformatted my external hard drive (whilst on windows machine) to FAT32 (so I can use on both windows and mac) so that I could back up my files.
3. I then transferred files from mac onto external hard drive and then also put them on a windows machine.
4. After reformatting mac hard drive when I then tried to transfer files back onto the mac I get the 'not readable' error.
The technical details:
Thank you very much indeed anyone who can help or can try and help
Cheers
Andy

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