If you have the system-back-to-factory-settings DVDs (or a recovery space on your HDD) you can give that a whirl. Do that, put on WSE, let it update, and it should print and see the external drive just fine.
And, of course, you can always do that before you ask for any warranty help because they’ll never know you blew the OS away and put it back.
It won’t let me get back to factory settings. I tried to do that to get rid of the anti-virus program they gave me and I couldn’t remove it.
I could try it again, but I’m afraid it will reinstall the anti-virus because it won’t let me recover back far enough.