new external drive format issues. Any way to get the data back?

[alexalex22]

so.
got myself a low end toshiba external portable 500gb hard drive.
plug it in. it works.
decide to do a format - cos my other drives are ntfs, i want this one also. i trigger it, and wait and wait and wait
and nothing is happening so i cancel.
and keep clicking to cancel and eventually it does.

i unplug the drive's usb cord from the drive, wait a bit, plug it in, pc message asks me to format i say yes, put in ntfs and i wait and wait and wait and nothing is happening.

i cancel etc.

hey i never claimed i'm a pc tech.
now after 2 reboots it's plugged in and out and in, i get a message now asking if i want to format i say yes, and eventually i get a message saying

Windows can't format M
Check to see that the disk and drive are connected properly, make sure that the disk is not read-only and then try again. For more information, search Help for read-only files and how to change them.

now i don't know what to do.
the default initially was exFat i'm thinking i should have left well enough alone.

but now i need to try to get it working..

please help