Connecting external hdd drive requires reactivation

I have been having an issue with CS2 for some time now. Every time I connect an e-SATA external hard drive, the message pops up saying "the licence configuration data is no longer usable. Click OK to continue". A new popup window appears, with the message: "Your 30 day period to use Photoshop without activation is over. To continue using this product you must activate with with a serial number". I have a legitimate copy which I have had for several years, so what is this reference to a 30 day trial period?
When I try to activate on line, I am then told I have had too many activations, so cannot proceed. This presumably is because I have been forced to reactivate each time I connect, and each time I disconnect the external hard drive. I do not have Photoshop installed on any other computers.
I then try phone activation, and of course this fails, so I am put into a queue waiting an interminable time (over one hour) to talk to somebody, to activate, often ending with a dropped line and having to start again. This is very frustrating indeed.
There surely is a way around this problem I am not the only user of Photoshop to use an external e-SATA drive for storage. Can anybody offer any advice?

Thanks for your input. I have checked my drive numbering when the external drive is attached, and it comes at the end after my main drives. I have a boot drive with Windows XP2 SP2, and all my applications, and three drives for data files, in RAID 5.0 configuration. The external drive comes after these. In the past I found that once I re-activated with the drive disconnected, then I could open Photoshop without further problems, until I once again reconnected the external drive via e-SATA, when I was asked to re-activate. This only happens with e-SATA, and not with USB 2.0. I feel like abandoning e-SATA, but that is admitting defeat. There must be an answer.
Incidentally, i would like Adobe people to try using the telephone activation line, and experience the extreme frustration that I have experienced. I have to use this each time, because on-line activation fails due to having exceeded the maximum number of activations. I have had an extremely frustrating time over the last two days. I have used two lines simultaneously to speed things up, one free, and one toll. On each of three occasion I have been held listening to music for over an hour on each line, and then the line disconnecting. Eventually, I got through to someone in the Philipines (yes its true) who gave me an authorisation code. I was back in business for a short while, but then back to square one when I connected my external e-SATA drive, and had to re-activate once again by telephone. In the past, disconnecting the drive enabled me to get back to work, but this time re-activation was required whether the drive was connected or not. This is all totally unacceptable. It seems to me that Adobe has little regard for its customers, and it has made this activation business an absolute nightmare. At the very least, can Adobe not provide sufficient resources to speedily deal with telephone activation?

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