Files on external FAT32 hard drive have disappeared

My friend attached her external USB hard drive to my Mac. She didn't know that she was supposed to eject her drive before pulling the USB cord.
Now, she can't see any of her files when she attaches her drive to her Windows XP machine. She's very upset; this drive has years worth of files, including some wonderful photos from a workshop we both went to.
I was able to attach the drive to a Linux computer, and I can see file and directory names. I wasn't able to change into any of the directories, though.
When we attach it to a Windows machine, the drive looks completely blank, and Windows asks if we want to format it.
What should we do?
Catemaco

Catemaco wrote:
My friend attached her external USB hard drive to my Mac. She didn't know that she was supposed to eject her drive before pulling the USB cord.
Now, she can't see any of her files when she attaches her drive to her Windows XP machine. She's very upset; this drive has years worth of files, including some wonderful photos from a workshop we both went to.
I was able to attach the drive to a Linux computer, and I can see file and directory names. I wasn't able to change into any of the directories, though.
When we attach it to a Windows machine, the drive looks completely blank, and Windows asks if we want to format it.
What should we do?
Catemaco
if the drive is still visible on your computer, copy everything to your HD and burn a CD or DVD with the data. Then you can reformat the flashdrive and copy the data back onto it.
Obviously you have learned the lesson of never disconnecting a drive without first ejecting it.
I have two flashdrives that I use on my MBPs and my PCs and it has never lost any data, but even a flashdrive should regularly be backed up onto something more permanent.
Your friend obviously has been yanking the flashdrive out of her PC without ejecting it and that's a no-no also. There's an icon in the Windows taskbar on the lower right that is used to eject any portable hardware, from flashdrives to cameras, to whatever. Let her know that it is very important to properly eject the drive, no matter what computer it is on.

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