How do I view the content of an external drive using Win 7?

This PC user has a lot of HDDs that were used in a previous incarnation of Windows,
ie. WinXP. There are some files that I know that I used in XP days gone by, and
I would like to locate them and reuse them again.
I tried going the USB route, but it didn't work. Win 7 was not able to find the
external Mass storage device connected to a USB port.
Fortunately I have Promise Tech. Ultra133 TX2 HDD controller card which works
with Win 7, and has a Super Swap thing that came with it.
Everything works.
The key switch works!. With that I can connect and disconnect the HDD form
the OS.
But it seems like the built-in security features of Win 7 keep getting in the way.
When I start Win 7 with the connection made to the external HDD, an error screen
comes up telling me that there is a problem.
I can either let Windows try to fix it, or I can tell it to load Windows 7 normally.
When I tell it to load normally, the system shuts down and restarts.
Does anybody know I can get around this s/w road block?

The device manager has a lot of yellow question marks, so I downloaded an update but
this s/w will not load and install because the file is .sys and Windows 7 doesn't know
what it should do with it, and asks me. I have no idea what I should do next.

Open device manager and, with the snipping tool, take a snapshot.
Post it here as an attachment. (Go Advanced - Manage Attachments - browse - upload)

Did you try to let windows find the driver?
Right click on the yellow alert - update driver - search automatically