This is about an USB-drive. I believe the problem stems from when my system froze while I was copying files from it earlier today, although it might've appeared earlier without me knowing as I haven't really used it in a while.
Anyways, after the freeze I got the message that the drive would need to be formatted before I could use it (or before windows could access it). I tried releasing it and replugging it, but it didn't help. After a reboot, things seemed fine again. I could browse the folders, at least. However, when I started copying files again, it pretty much lost contact. Mid-transfer I got a message that the file could not be found, and I could no longer open any files on the drive. Afterwards it's gone back to "needs formatting" status again.
To put an even stranger twist on things, I just tried the same copy process on my laptop. It worked. What can this possibly mean?
..and of course, I've got 133gb of data stored on it, while the hard drive on my computer has about 80gb available. So much for recovery.