Help! I inadvertantly might have messed up my external hard drive

Hey folks I have one of those WD My Book external hard drives that I have been basically using as a storage device for all my images and other essential items I need.
Somewhere along the way I must have done something wrong. Now when I have it connected to my laptop it only shows that it is showing as "CD Drive (I; ) WD Smartware" and at only one gigabyte, this is a 1 TB hard drive. I cannot get the computer to access the rest of the HD, it just shows it as an unrecognisable partition.
is there any thing out there I can use so that I can force the computer to access the rest of this hardrive?
Hopefully I have explained this right. The hard drive used to just be the I drive where I have stored tons of photos and other crucial information that I need to recover. I am thinking of just taking it into some computer guru locally to get all that info back, but I first want to know If I can take care of it myself.

Open disk management (Start-Right Click Computer-Manage-Disk Management), right click the drive you are having trouble with, click change drive letter and paths, remove it, then right click it again, Drive Letter and Paths, and add it. Just click OK in the box.

Sounds to me like you have the WD software DVD in your DVD drive...

714 said:

Open disk management (Start-Right Click Computer-Manage-Disk Management), right click the drive you are having trouble with, click change drive letter and paths, remove it, then right click it again, Drive Letter and Paths, and add it. Just click OK in the box.

I did that and and when I try to open the drive, it wants to reformat in order for me to use it

patio said:

Sounds to me like you have the WD software DVD in your DVD drive...

No, it is not in the drive, I somehow or another managed to make it so that it always comes up like that....I know absolutely nothing about computers,

Birddude007 said:

714 said:

Open disk management (Start-Right Click Computer-Manage-Disk Management), right click the drive you are having trouble with, click change drive letter and paths, remove it, then right click it again, Drive Letter and Paths, and add it. Just click OK in the box.

I did that and and when I try to open the drive, it wants to reformat in order for me to use it

Oooh. I think something is wrong with the HD and you might have to format it in order to use it. I had the same thing happen to me with an SD card. Can you post a screenshot of the error your getting?

File and data recovery software to unformat, undelete files. Recover deleted files and recover formatted disk or corrupt drives - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard.
Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums

Here ya go-

Are there any drivers or software disks for it? You're gonna have to try some data recovery like the Easeus link in my post above yours, or take it to a local computer shop if not.

714 said:

Are there any drivers or software disks for it? You're gonna have to try some data recovery like the Easeus link in my post above yours, or take it to a local computer shop if not.

I am doing that right now and it is actually the first software that I tried that is actually scanning the drive, I will let you know the outcome.

PS: By the way- GO Jr! he really needs to get up on that wheel to get that championship, I have seen some serious improvement with him this year, hope he gets the Cup