Flash drive issue- Vista asking me to format???

>
> Hey guys,
>
> My girlfriend has a 4GB Lexar flash drive that she primarily uses on
> her XP laptop, but has used on my Vista desktop countless times. All of
> a sudden tonight, when trying to access the drive, Vista tells me that
> the drive needs to be formatted, and asks if I'd like to format now.
> Assuming that formatting would erase all the data she has saved on the
> drive, I instead tried to access the drive on an XP computer- and XP
> gave me the same response, that the drive needed to be formatted.
>
> This flash drive was operating normally as of last night on her XP
> laptop. Now my Vista, and two other computers running XP have all given
> me this formatting nonsense. Anyone have any suggestions for me on how
> to fix this- or simply how I can get the data off of there safely?
>
> Any advice is GREATLY appreciated!
>
>
> --
> DanGilley