Help with External Maxtor Hard drive 500gig

[Treebody]

Right, here's one for you tech savvy guys.

I have an external hard drive that's 500gig Maxtor. I had some crap before where I would transfer from 3 different machines with XP, Vista and 7 and it faulted changing visible size. It had stuck with 150gig for a few months, and I dealt with it because I needed it for work and programs.

The current problem... last night I installed a windows update (XP, SP3) and the full drive size has shown, but in different partitions. So now, I have my old 150gig partition which has all my important files on and another partition with 350gig that is accessible. The one I need and want says it needs a format, but I'm reluctant to do it, because I can't lose these files.

Is there any possible way, to transfer the files from that partition to the available one and format the other to get my full drive size available?

If I've confused or not stated anything properly, make sure to call me out. I'm tired, is all lol

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

---------- Post added 2011-08-24 at 08:37 PM ----------

Update:

I unplugged it, switched it off then reconnected and it's now showing as a whole 465.76gig (Out of 500) But obviously, still can't access it or retrieve files. I can't really put anything onto my internal drive either, because that's full of important stuff.

[Sno]

If you transfer/backup the files from your external to your computers HDD, that would allow you to format the external back into 1 partition while keeping your data, if that's what you are aiming for.

Edit: You updated :P, How much in size if the files that currently resides on the external? you could look at storing it online

[Treebody]

Doesn't matter now.
Appreciate the time and help though

In the end, tried some recovery programs, even one I'd bought a few months ago and it just couldn't find anything so I sucked it up, formatted it completely and thought positive about having the full 500Gig back and usable to me.

As for the important files, luckily I checked my laptop and found most of them.

[OhpUldum]

Sounds like you have a faulting external hard drive. I would suggest using a boot utility such as Hirens Boot CD and boot using Mini XP or Mini Linux. Once inside there you should have full access of both hard drives and files without having to format the Maxtor. Should the problem persist then it is a case where you will need to run data recovery software such as Recuva for sudden partition loss.

But at this point you want to try any means possible to recover your data from the Maxtor as it is very close to dying.

[Sno]

Doesn't matter now.
Appreciate the time and help though

In the end, tried some recovery programs, even one I'd bought a few months ago and it just couldn't find anything so I sucked it up, formatted it completely and thought positive about having the full 500Gig back and usable to me.

As for the important files, luckily I checked my laptop and found most of them.

Good to hear the issues sorted