there are lots of quick format recovery programs available
norton should do it, i use easy recovery professional, its a very good set of tools
if you convert it to ntfs youll wipe it out, since itll convert whats there, which presumably is nothing
you can do a fat32->ntfs without loosing data, but youve already lost it
most file recovery dont do in place, ie they copy to another drive, you can do in place but its messy
http://www.ontrack.com
theres a vast amount of free software to do this as well, a quick google with format recover or such should turn up loads