There are many articles about taking ownership to solve your first issue but the format the drive means that it could have failed or you didn't get it plugged in the same way or other issues.
If the files must be retrieved, try again, check your work, research TAKE OWNERSHIP and if all fail with the format prompt, try other PCs and then drivesavers.com
So my laptop died. I got an adapter kit to hook the hard drive up to my desktop. It worked. I was able to see the external drive. The public folders were all accessible, but I couldn't get into the "me" because I was denied permission. I tried a few things - changing owner and some parental inheritance thing I found advised online. Still couldn't get in.
Today I plugged the hard drive in to try again and now I can't see anything on it and it's telling me I need to format the drive.
Help?

Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic