well i've been away for a few days and i get home turn on my pc and now my external hdd is showing up as it's not formatted? wtf happened? my computer is abit of a slut and gets used alot by my housemates have they done something or has it just s*** itself? its only about 6 months old.

delete the drive from device manager, reboot and plug her back in. i've seen it happen before.

does a house mate have mac??

Maybe its because who ever used the drive last didn't use 'safe remove' and just unplugged the drive which stuffed the file system

I dont share my PC with anyone anymore.. means its a much cleaner machine..

Remove the drive from the caddy and plug it in.