Windows 7 wants to format my HDDR500E04X external hard drive

I've been using a Toshiba HDDR500E04X external hard drive for over a year to back-up files. Today, I plug it in and Windows 7 tells me I need to format it before use - as if it were a brand new drive. I've tried unplugging and plugging several times, as well as rebooting the system, but nothing changes.
The drive hasn't been dropped or otherwise mishandled. Any ideas? I realize that if I format it now, all data will be lost.
Thanks,
John Z.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Run chkdsk again and see what the report at the end looks like. Any bad sectors?
1953512447 KB total disk space.
742399572 KB in 1072 files.
       364 KB in 64 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.              <----------
    131015 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log f
1210981496 KB available on disk.
-Jerry

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Windows 7 wants to format my HDDR500E04​X external hard drive

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Windows 7 wants to format my HDDR500E04X external hard drive