No, it was originally formatted as FAT32. It should not matter what filesystem is being used.

Yes, disconnectsing the drive during a write process could lead to filesystem corruption. A drive of this age would be much slower then newer ones.

When I got it back in 05, it would of been NTFS, I had to format it ti FAT 32 for the PS2 linux project. So considering I would of formatted it the NTFS after, then in feb it began this format load box and Iost the files on it.

So far I have kept it as FAT 32, and see what happens.