the hdd works fine on any device except this one. Remember i told u i did system restore 10 days ago and did delete the old adobe and reinstall it once. Now it comes to this.

sodog, i seee!  so did you dare to try that sfc command?

After system restore, did you try the external HDD before install adobe? For sure is some system files corrupted and Mickey's suggestion is the way to fix it. If you cannot find the SFCFILES.DLL, you can try direct copy from i386 folder or Xp CD

egg, what suggestions do u have if it cannot recognize an external hdd and gives error?

sodog, by the way, what about other external hdd?  do u have a second external hdd u can plug in and see if u get the same error?

Sometimes the external HD doesn't get enough power, so the station can't recognize it....

Post the step again for your reference.

We will want to replace the files sfcfiles.dll, storprop.dll and syssetup.dll in the windows\system32 directory.

• Open a command prompt by clicking START, then RUN, then typing CMD and clicking OK.
  
• Type in cd c:\windows\system32 or cd %systemroot%\system32 if your system drive is any letter other than C:.
  
• Type COPY %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\dllcache\SFCFILES.DLL . /Y and press ENTER.
  
• Then type COPY %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\dllcache\SYSSETUP.DLL . /Y and press ENTER.
  
• Then type COPY %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\dllcache\storprop.dll . /Y and press ENTER.
  
• Now type EXIT to exit the Command Console and restart your computer.
  

Relevant Links:
www.supportspace.com/support/expert/steve_b
www.support.microsoft.com

That's the same resource i found from searching the net. I even printed out this instruction.

i have the xp cd, will  it work?

you should give it a try.. if it was the sfcfiles.dll that was missing, take the one from cd and see if it will be happy.