I used Testdisk and that showed me that all my files and directories were on there. It also showed the name I gave the drive. Testdisk - I didn’t find a way to resurrect my WD passport with that.
I am on Vista Home on my laptop.
However, I went into Windows - Disk Management (its in the Control Panel) and had a look. It said that there was drive on there but nameless (again, same as you, just said F: Drive).
However I did a right click and saw there is an option called “Mark partition as active”. Which I did.
And then the name showed up in Windows Explorer and I was able to view all my directories and files again.
PS: I have previously had success with plugging the drive into another computer, or on another day into the same computer. It’s an erratic process and I am really not happy with the situation. Even if I back up all my files on 2 or 3 drives, there is still a chance all of them could come up with the “needs formatting” message. These days I make sure that my data is on a HDD and a DVD.
