message: slave drive not formatted?

> Today I tried to access my backup files on my slave hard
> drive and could not. The icon just dissapeared! After I
> restarted I got it back but it shows no volume
> information and when i try to access it again it tells me
> that the drive is not formatted and is asking me if I
> want to do that now. Doing this of course will delete all
> my backup files that I store on that drive. The question
> is: How can I access my backup files on my secondary hard
> drive?
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have Windows XP
> Home Edition.
>
> Thanks!