External hdd does not recognise , windows media player won't play

hello everyone,

i need your help my pc does not recongise my external hdd, it only see's it as a normal sata hdd. the reaason i know this is because everytime i plug my external through e-sata and switch it on my pc does not open my external, when i plug my usb 2.0 in it straight away opens up saefty remove tool , etc....... the only time my pc recongise my external through e-sata is when i plug the e-sata cable in and have my external switched on and restart my pc, but the problem is it doesn't see my external as a e-sata it sees it as a normal sata.

also my windows media player 11 doesn't play avi or any other files. it says its missing something and needs to be on the internet to search.

well anyway the problem started when i installed vista sp2 and retarted. also i have tried to go to restore point where before i installed sp2, its the same.

also could it be my mobo? because i have two hdd and the 1st hdd was the one i'm using right now which at first worked perfectly - my external, media player all the drivers worked good. so i bought a new hdd and installed windows xp and used the same mobo and ram and everything. i then installed all the mobo drivers for the 2nd hdd.

i also might need helpto format my first hdd and re-install vista again, but i would really like to know what could ahve caused my pc to have these problems.

my pc specs:

- mobo: gigabyte ep45 ud3p rev.1.1
- bios: f7
- cpu: intel's core 2 e8500
- ram: kingston 800mhz 4gb kit
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