Let's start with the latter. Maybe this has been discussed before (even though I did a search and couldn't find anything) but my keyboard's numeric pad does not work in the guest OS (XP). Does anyone else have that problem? Is there a manip to fix this or something that will be addressed in future releases? More important: I have an external USB harddrive connected to my iMac. Works just fine on it. It is also recognized in the guest OS no problem. When I connected I get a pop up box about it being recognized...it is also listed in the device manager. Problem is...I can't access its contents from anywhere! No icon appear on the desktop, no drive listed in My Computer either...????
On the numeric keypad issue, once in your guest OS push the "clear" key on your Mac keyboard. That should allow use of the numeric keypad. Can't help you with the other problem. Sorry.
Regarding the external HD, is it formatted with FAT16, FAT32, or NTFS? If not, then you need to buy MacDrive to be able to access it through Windows. Chances are good that you probably formatted it with HFS if you use it on your Mac.
Good point. I didn't even think about that. Well, that's kind of moot as far I am concerned now anyways: I setup a shared folder and that is working perfectly. No need to share the external HD anymore.