How do I restore data from my hard drive from time before time machine tried to back up on it

I used to have a WIndows PC, than I finally joined Apple Family and Iam pretty happy.
But today I tried to get some data from an old WD Passport Hard Drive and Time Machine immidately tried to backup itself on it.
Before I understood time machine startet to backup on my hard drive and everything I had on it before was gone.
What to do?
How can I get my data back?
Thanks

In order for Time Machine to back up to a HDD, it must be formatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) in Disk Utility. Formatting will erase all user data on that HDD. Time Machine will only delete TM data on a HDD that may have other data on it (non TM data).
If you formatted that WD HDD for use with Time Machine, all data that was on it is gone. If you put data on the WD HDD after formatting, it still should be there.
Ciao.

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dacracot wrote:
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Thanks you guys. X, that is interesting to read. Chap, I see what you are saying. But I just found these two FAQ's from BFD's website. How do you feel in reference to them? Is it me, or do these questions somewhat contradict each other? :
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