Data Rev

Had a nasty virus with a real nasty keylogger and some other crap that warranted a format.

Anyways, during the process, my drive names got screwed up, and I ended up formatting my external harddrive!!

It's an I/O MAGIC 500GB USB model, and I believe it's in NTFS.

Is it possible in any way to recover files from a formated, external drive such as this?

I've used two programs~ One would scan and find 700 files before it would always freeze, and the other couldn't detect any files at all.

I need some serious help>_<

Harmph.  Even though I don't need my USB drive during XP setup and the best safety is to pull the plug, I leave it in and subject my drive to possible catastrophe.

Oh wow.  It says Formatting... and the light on my external drive is blinking.  Hmm... WHAT DO I DOING???

DIAF and give up on computers.  Seriously.  Sell your shit, cancel your Internet and stay away.  Forever. You need to be placed as far away from anything computer related as possible.

There are options to attempt to restore the drive.
Unfortunately, none of them are 100% guaranteed to work. =/
If you've written ANY data to it since the format, your data is *gone* - you can't recover once it's been over-written.

1. Grab a copy of the latest Knoppix LiveCD. 
Boot to it, & chose the Recovery options from the menu.
Pick Restore Formatted HD
Plug the USB drive in & select it from the list of available drives.
If it asks, tell it the format style (NTFS), and to Recover All Files.
It may take a while, but IF it works, your drive will be as if you'd never formatted it.

2. Find any of the various "Drive Recovery" programs, & check the I/O Magic site to see if they have a specific one.
Then, much the same as before, plug in the USB drive, tell it to recover the drive, and hope.

If none of them restore the files, then you're out of luck. =/
The only thing I can say at that point is to not leave the USB drive connected unless you're actively doing work on it.
If you make a habit of moving all your currently-generated-files to it before you shut the system down, then unplugging the drive before you hit the power switch, you'll be doing yourself a HUGE favor for the future.
(Because you won't have the drive connected TO accidentally damage.)

Hope that helps! =)