harddisk malfunction help

hey folks..
i have a problem with one of the three partitions of my seagate hard drive, i am using win xp - when i double click on the partition to open it normally, it wont open but instead the (open with) window appears and gives me option to open the partition with other programes such as paint and the note pad etc, how ever the only way to open it is by right clicking on it and open it with ither (open) or (explore). this partition dont contain the windows xp operating files but its a 120 g partition that i stored all my data on it.
i had this problem long a go when i used partition magic once in the past, and through the passage of time i formated the other 2 drives several times, and therefore i installed win xp several times, but the problem is still there.
i also noticed that this partition works normally on other operating systems such as vista and windows me.
can any one help me..
thnks

 

Have a look here and see if your Default Value is set to ''none''

Click Start, Run and enter REGEDIT and Navigate to:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Shell

 

Yes it is set to none, is that normal?