NEED HELP! Cannot access wexternal drives

I NEED HELP! ACCESSING EXTERNAL DRIVES

This is a problem that came up about two months ago.

Before that, no problem.

I use:

Win XP Home Ed SP-3

When I access an External Drive using USB, (Flash drive, camera,

backup portable drive, etc.) it is recognized and assigned a Drive

Letter. It shows the folder icons.

However when I try to access (open any files) I get the message

"This Operation Has Been Cancelled Due to Restrictions in Effect on This

Computer. Please contact your system administrator"

I have tried looking at every check box that I can find to no avail.

Another suggestion was that I install "GPEdit" Did that.

Could not find any place that would lock or unlock file access.

Since I use home edition I cannot access any "security" tabs.

Trying to boot into "safe mode" only brings up a screen that asks me

what disk I want to boot to. Selecting any disc besides the disk

my "C" drive is on does nothing. Selecting the "C" drive disk starts

XP normally.

I am at my wits end. As far as I know I did NOTHING that would cause this.

Without being able to access my external drives this machine is rapidly

becoming useless to me.

I have spent dozens of hours trying to track this down.

SOMEONE must have heard about this problem before and knows a

simple solution to it.

PLEASE!!!!!

Thanks

Mark