Asking me to format

Question

I have been using my QMemory usb 2.0 external hard drive for 2-3 years with no problems until now. Randomly today my computer asked me to format it, which makes me think that it's going to erase all the information saved on the hard drive. should i go ahead and format it, or is there another solution? I can't get it to open at all without this prompt coming up.