Cannot open the external HD from My Computer

[coody]

I got a Seagate portable external hard drive. My PC operating system is Windows XP Pro. I could ever open the external hard drive from My Computer. After I saved some documents with the other computer installed Windows 2000, I am now unable to open the external hard drive from My Computer. When I double-click a drive letter (external hard drive) from My Computer, I see the following error messages in the Windows XP Setup window: *Please go to the Control Panel to install and configure system components.* I guess it is due to the different Operating System used. Does anyone know how to fix the problem? Thank you for your answer.

[kadzbiz]

Does the external HD just have data on it, or was it a backup of the PC with the Windows 2000 on it? If it is just data, you should be able to access it without a problem IMO.

[aedipuss]

control panel/administrative tools/computer management/disk management. the drive should be in the bottom pane right click and partition if necessary and/or assign a drive letter to it.

[buttzilla]

control panel/administrative tools/computer management/disk management. the drive should be in the bottom pane right click and partition if necessary and/or assign a drive letter to it.

That would lose the data he said he has on there. i don't think he wants to do that

[buttzilla]

Did you install 2000 as a fat32 partion. if so thats might be your problem. Is the seagate drive a ntfs partition? 2000 installed on a fat32 partition can't mount a ntfs partition. You can convert you 2000 install to ntfs using the microsoft guide below.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb456984.aspx

[deckard8]

control panel/administrative tools/computer management/disk management. the drive should be in the bottom pane right click and partition if necessary and/or assign a drive letter to it.
_________________

If you cannot assign a drive letter, (it is greyed out) this usually means your partition table is hosed.
This is a common occurence with external usb hard drives.
Best tool to recover and restore your partition table is 'Active Partition Recovery' http://www.partition-recovery.com/
It will restore your drive in a matter of seconds. I've restored many external hard disks with this tool where the drive is inacessible in Windows and the data has vanished.

[coody]

I am sorry I should say the USB 2.0 drive instead of the external hard drive. Actually the USB drive letter is there in My Computer. But, double-clicking the letter, the Windows XP Setup window displays: *Please go to the Control Panel to install and configure system components.*

However, I still can open it by right click and then choose open. Before I saved some word documents and pictures with the other PC (Windows 2000 based), I could open the USB drive by double click the drive letter. I do not know why I cannot do it right now. Does anyone know what the error message mean and how to fix it? Again, the error message is *Please go to the Control Panel to install and configure system components.* after I double click the USB drive letter from My Computer.