External disk drive gone mad

[matsm]

Hi
I am writing this for my little sister who needs a bit of help with her external hard drive.

The other day she took out dad's external disk from her old computer and put in her own external to copy over some images, but on her external she could not see her own folders but the folders from my dads external that was disconnected.
She took her external to her new computer and tried to plug the external into that one and the folders from my dads external would still show up on hers and with strange letters and numbers as folder names.

Is there anything that can be done for the external or does it need replacing?
Sorry I can't provide more info as she lives on the other side of the world.

Additional info:
The old computer runs XP and her new one runs Windows 7.
When she plus the external into the new laptop a message appears as if she wants to repair the disk, it does not solve anything.

Cheers

[Rik from RCE]

Sounds like data has become corrupted on it. She needs to back it all up then format the external. Doing a full format rather than a quick format should cure the problem!

[matsm]

Corrupted files was the first thing that came to my mind too.
The thing is she can't see the files that were on her disk in the first place, its replaced by something that should not be there at all. It's as if my dads hard drive was mirrored onto it without even being connected as the same time.
Furthermore she can't open the files on the external.

I'll have a chat with her later and see what can be done.
Thanks for the swift reply

[Rik from RCE]

Find out what protective software she has and if she has scanned the external with it! Externals can transfer malware with ease!

[lisaroy1]

My CDROM doesn't open when no Cd is inserted?

[matsm]

Try making a separate post about it and not in a unrelated thread.
and you might need some more description about it. Tower or laptop etc