My Book suddenly not recognized as formatted

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
4

There are other free data recovery programs you can try, check the link below.

http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drives-for-PC/My-Book-Home-Edition-500-GB/m-p/655183#M19779

If that doesn’t work and data recovery is a must, you can also contact any of the data recovery partners on the WD Support page. Some of them offer a free evaluation of your drive. 

http://support.wdc.com/recovery/index.asp?wdc_lang=en