Macbook Pro not recognizing external HD

[KRIMME]

This was submitted previously on ticket #330397, but the ticket was closed after a delay in responding.
When I called Fantom Drives for support they told me that I lost my partition due to corruption, but that was about it. I have a 150GB hard drive that supports FAT 32.

I moved all my music and pictures to the drive from my old mac to free up space. When I connect to either computer, I get amessage that Mac cannot read the volumes on the disk, and that I need to initialize the disk.

How can I access the drive without losing the files that are already on it? Someone suggested I try to connect using my PC, but the drive only has firewire ports.

Thanks,

Andrew

In response to Stuart, I tried to run the Disk Utility First Aid, but the "Repair Disk" button was grayed out when I highlighted the drive. The Firewire ports are working, as we have a keyboard and mouse connected through them that are working. I also tried taking the battery out and doing a reset. The drive is less than a year old, and has lot's of pictures and 30 GB of music on it that we really don't want to lose. We are running Mac OS X version 10.4.8 and would like to see if their are other options before purchasing DiskWarrior or other software for $80.

Thanks for your help!

Andrew