Windows 7: Hard Drive Wants Me To Format It But There Is Data On It

I'm freaking out because my hard drive won't show the data and says that I need to format it. It is a
external Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1 TB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive STAA1000100 (Black)
and the computer is a Acer Aspire E1-571-6650 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

It is important files that I stupidly did not back up elsewhere and I am scared to loose them. What settings do I need to change to fix this or do I need to run a program?

I was able to fix it with these instructions,
html5.litten.com/how-to-fix-external-disk-drive-suddenly-became-raw/

It took over 3 hours to run but worked and everything is back and I backed up all thousands of photos that I thought were gone.

I guess this is how you learn that backups are important haha.

Well done wb303 and thanks for sharing the link. That is proof enough for the efficacy of TestDisk.

I also agree with the author's perception that one should first try to recover the data by the non-invasive means of a live linux CD/pendrive.

As far as using TestDisk is concerned, I am veering around to using it in much the same way, that is booting from a pendrive and running it from it, putting Windows to rest.

I would only make it simpler by creating a bootable DOS pendrive as indicated here: Regain a lost drive using Test Disk - An Illustrated Guide

Again, well done wb303.